Bullshit
“I hate the moments between
meeting someone and leaving
someone
there’s this brief feeling of trust
before the paranoia that seeps in
once you begin to realize that
they’re just like everyone else
you’ve met before
different person
same bullshit" R.H. Sin
What, even virtually?
“She might not be as strong as everyone she met, or as fast, or even as smart. But she could bullshit with the best of them. Combine that with a license to carry, and a girl could more than get by in this life.” Laura Lippman
Yes, even virtually.
“Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.” Harry G. Frankfurt
Bullshit?
“Bullshit is the glue that binds us as a nation.” George Carlin
Democracy some call it.
“Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial—notoriously less stable and less inherent than the nature of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit.” Harry G. Frankfurt
See, I told you.
“I wasn't sure which was worse - to know you were a liar or to believe your own bullshit.” Ellen Cook
Actually, it's still believing the bullshit of others.
Quote of the day
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
“H. You can’t spell Hell without it.”
You can’t spell hypnosis either.
The “South Korean Seven” some call it. In other words, a twisted and sadistic serial killer is out there. And it is now our job to probe the twisted and sadistic narrative that compels him to do these terrible things.
After all, it is invariably this that seems so much more important than the part about the cops tracking him down. In other words, our fascination stems from minds that become entangled in points of view that most of us would simply find unimaginable. We could never do these things. But what can we really know about the experiences of someone who can? In a two hour film there is only so much that can be examined and exposed about the things that link the past to the present. Instead, we have to fill in all the gaps [the blanks] with our very own existential prejudices.
And you can’t help but wonder: is it necessary to be afflicted with a mental disease to do these things? Is this something only a psychotic would do? Or is it something that anyone of us might find ourselves [for whatever personal reason] able to rationalize? Given, for example, the right [or the wrong] set of circumstances.
So this is all about motive. Intention. And this: Can it carry over all the way back to the…womb?
The hook here is that these gruesome crimes are recreations of earlier crimes. But the man who committed them [Shin Hyun] is already locked up in prison. So, what is the connection? Nietzsche perhaps? Or is it more to do with a woman’s menstrual cycle? Or abortion?
In the end, we come back around to hypnosis. But trust me: no way you will ever understand this particular narrative in just one viewing. And apparently it helps to think about these things as a South Korean might.
In Korea, “going to the beach” is synonymous with committing suicide.
Koreans believe that a baby becomes self-aware while still in the womb and that everything a parent does or says during pregnancy will be in the unconscious memory of their child throughout life. This superstition is evidenced in the plot of “H” by having the killer relive his feelings when his mom aborted him (which he survived) while under hypnosis. IMDb
H
Detective Kang [to Shin Hyun]: It has been a long time. How does it feel to be receiving all the attention again?
Follow the bouncing flame...
Shin Hyun [after Kang showed him photos of the six women he killed]: From the heart or the soul of the body…a sound echoing from the body to the soul. Have you experienced the echoing abyss?
Let's rule out reasoning with him.
Shin Kyun [to Kang]: The magificense in the spot of redemption at the borderline between life and death. Open your ears to what they are saying and feel the flow. And if you don’t feel the message echoing, it will be buried in the abyss. Have you ever thought about what this person was thinking as the blood spread? Detective Kang, when you face the abyss don’t forget that you are facing yourself. And when you fight a monster like me be careful not to turn into a monster too.
Blah, blah, blah?
Detective Kim: Are there any files on Shin Hyun?
Doctor Chu: A doctor doesn’t reveal information on patients.
Detective Kim: Doctor Chu, information is needed to protect future victims. How about cooperating with us?
Doctor Chu: No. My patient is more important to me than a victim I don’t know.
Let's just say [as I recall] she's in on it.
Detective Kang: Why are stupid people so complicated?
God knows?
Captain: How about Shin Hyun’s next murder?
Detective Kim: He wanted to show life’s nobility so he murdered an abortion doctor and excavated her uterus.
Captain: Cruelly killing for the sake of life’s nobility.
They should have run Kant by him.
Detective Kim: That expression of yours…that’s the look of joy that children get when they thoughtlessly twist a chick’s neck.
Shin Hyun: You should know that all looks hide hidden meanings. People who try hard to hide themselves, people who treat life as a possession and go about trying to hide their crime…
Detective Kim: Are you referring to yourself?
Shin Hyun: Obviously you are not understanding the dimensions.
Detective Kim: Dimension?! You’re nothing more than a murderer waiting for death. You see things superficially.
Shin Hyun: Listen to the cry of the abyss. If you fail to take heed, you won’t be able to see beyond the six corpses…
He'd fit right in posting here, I suspect.
Shin Hyun [to Kim]: Coward? Death is the lone salvation for those who abandon life and life that is abandoned. You too will soon understand.
One way or another.
Doctor Chu [on video]: The possibility of an embryo surviving an abortion is under 3%. Shin Hyun was born in these circumstances. And his memory of the attack he felt in the womb came to control his subconscious. His aggressive behavior caused by his hatred of women originates from the horror he felt while still unborn.
Me, I still can't remember a thing in there.
Detective Park: What is post-hypnosis?
Doctor: It’s a state where a person falls back into hypnosis when given a signal at a specific time.
Detective Kim: Are you saying a person can fall back into hypnosis even after the hypnotist has died?
Does anyone really know for sure about this part?
Detective Park: I heard there’s a way to break the hypnosis. Put down the gun. Look at my eyes. Hey, Kang! It’s not your fault! You had no choice!
[Kang puts down the gun. Then the final scene: detective Kim shoots him dead.]
Next up: post hypnotic suggestions in Hell.
You can’t spell hypnosis either.
The “South Korean Seven” some call it. In other words, a twisted and sadistic serial killer is out there. And it is now our job to probe the twisted and sadistic narrative that compels him to do these terrible things.
After all, it is invariably this that seems so much more important than the part about the cops tracking him down. In other words, our fascination stems from minds that become entangled in points of view that most of us would simply find unimaginable. We could never do these things. But what can we really know about the experiences of someone who can? In a two hour film there is only so much that can be examined and exposed about the things that link the past to the present. Instead, we have to fill in all the gaps [the blanks] with our very own existential prejudices.
And you can’t help but wonder: is it necessary to be afflicted with a mental disease to do these things? Is this something only a psychotic would do? Or is it something that anyone of us might find ourselves [for whatever personal reason] able to rationalize? Given, for example, the right [or the wrong] set of circumstances.
So this is all about motive. Intention. And this: Can it carry over all the way back to the…womb?
The hook here is that these gruesome crimes are recreations of earlier crimes. But the man who committed them [Shin Hyun] is already locked up in prison. So, what is the connection? Nietzsche perhaps? Or is it more to do with a woman’s menstrual cycle? Or abortion?
In the end, we come back around to hypnosis. But trust me: no way you will ever understand this particular narrative in just one viewing. And apparently it helps to think about these things as a South Korean might.
In Korea, “going to the beach” is synonymous with committing suicide.
Koreans believe that a baby becomes self-aware while still in the womb and that everything a parent does or says during pregnancy will be in the unconscious memory of their child throughout life. This superstition is evidenced in the plot of “H” by having the killer relive his feelings when his mom aborted him (which he survived) while under hypnosis. IMDb
H
Detective Kang [to Shin Hyun]: It has been a long time. How does it feel to be receiving all the attention again?
Follow the bouncing flame...
Shin Hyun [after Kang showed him photos of the six women he killed]: From the heart or the soul of the body…a sound echoing from the body to the soul. Have you experienced the echoing abyss?
Let's rule out reasoning with him.
Shin Kyun [to Kang]: The magificense in the spot of redemption at the borderline between life and death. Open your ears to what they are saying and feel the flow. And if you don’t feel the message echoing, it will be buried in the abyss. Have you ever thought about what this person was thinking as the blood spread? Detective Kang, when you face the abyss don’t forget that you are facing yourself. And when you fight a monster like me be careful not to turn into a monster too.
Blah, blah, blah?
Detective Kim: Are there any files on Shin Hyun?
Doctor Chu: A doctor doesn’t reveal information on patients.
Detective Kim: Doctor Chu, information is needed to protect future victims. How about cooperating with us?
Doctor Chu: No. My patient is more important to me than a victim I don’t know.
Let's just say [as I recall] she's in on it.
Detective Kang: Why are stupid people so complicated?
God knows?
Captain: How about Shin Hyun’s next murder?
Detective Kim: He wanted to show life’s nobility so he murdered an abortion doctor and excavated her uterus.
Captain: Cruelly killing for the sake of life’s nobility.
They should have run Kant by him.
Detective Kim: That expression of yours…that’s the look of joy that children get when they thoughtlessly twist a chick’s neck.
Shin Hyun: You should know that all looks hide hidden meanings. People who try hard to hide themselves, people who treat life as a possession and go about trying to hide their crime…
Detective Kim: Are you referring to yourself?
Shin Hyun: Obviously you are not understanding the dimensions.
Detective Kim: Dimension?! You’re nothing more than a murderer waiting for death. You see things superficially.
Shin Hyun: Listen to the cry of the abyss. If you fail to take heed, you won’t be able to see beyond the six corpses…
He'd fit right in posting here, I suspect.
Shin Hyun [to Kim]: Coward? Death is the lone salvation for those who abandon life and life that is abandoned. You too will soon understand.
One way or another.
Doctor Chu [on video]: The possibility of an embryo surviving an abortion is under 3%. Shin Hyun was born in these circumstances. And his memory of the attack he felt in the womb came to control his subconscious. His aggressive behavior caused by his hatred of women originates from the horror he felt while still unborn.
Me, I still can't remember a thing in there.
Detective Park: What is post-hypnosis?
Doctor: It’s a state where a person falls back into hypnosis when given a signal at a specific time.
Detective Kim: Are you saying a person can fall back into hypnosis even after the hypnotist has died?
Does anyone really know for sure about this part?
Detective Park: I heard there’s a way to break the hypnosis. Put down the gun. Look at my eyes. Hey, Kang! It’s not your fault! You had no choice!
[Kang puts down the gun. Then the final scene: detective Kim shoots him dead.]
Next up: post hypnotic suggestions in Hell.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Stupidity
“If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow." Jane Austen
What's that in bitcoins?
“When you're surrounded by stupidity, self-preservation isn't a sin.” Meljean Brook
Who the fuck has ever thought otherwise?
“Can anything be more disgusting than to hear people called 'educated' making small jokes about eating ham, and showing themselves empty of any real knowledge as to the relation of their own social and religious life to the history of the people they think themselves witty in insulting?...The best thing that can be said of it is, that it is a sign of the intellectual narrowness—in plain English, the stupidity which is still the average mark of our culture.” George Eliot
Of course, we can readily Trump that today.
“Stupidity is like bumping into a wall all the time. After a while you get tired of it and try to look the situation over and see if there’s a doorway somewhere." Robert Anton Wilson
Let's double our attempt to find one here.
“I admit that I myself am far from having a complete command of every topic I touch on, but my knowledge of my subject is always greater than the interest or the understanding of my auditors. You see, there is one very good thing about mankind; the mediocre masses make very few demands of the mediocrities of a higher order, submitting stupidly and cheerfully to their guidance” Alfred de Vigny
Let's all admit that. You first, of course.
“It's the fools that make all the trouble in the world, not the wicked.” L.M. Montgomery
Well, if only up in the clouds here.
“If this man had not twelve thousand a year, he would be a very stupid fellow." Jane Austen
What's that in bitcoins?
“When you're surrounded by stupidity, self-preservation isn't a sin.” Meljean Brook
Who the fuck has ever thought otherwise?
“Can anything be more disgusting than to hear people called 'educated' making small jokes about eating ham, and showing themselves empty of any real knowledge as to the relation of their own social and religious life to the history of the people they think themselves witty in insulting?...The best thing that can be said of it is, that it is a sign of the intellectual narrowness—in plain English, the stupidity which is still the average mark of our culture.” George Eliot
Of course, we can readily Trump that today.
“Stupidity is like bumping into a wall all the time. After a while you get tired of it and try to look the situation over and see if there’s a doorway somewhere." Robert Anton Wilson
Let's double our attempt to find one here.
“I admit that I myself am far from having a complete command of every topic I touch on, but my knowledge of my subject is always greater than the interest or the understanding of my auditors. You see, there is one very good thing about mankind; the mediocre masses make very few demands of the mediocrities of a higher order, submitting stupidly and cheerfully to their guidance” Alfred de Vigny
Let's all admit that. You first, of course.
“It's the fools that make all the trouble in the world, not the wicked.” L.M. Montgomery
Well, if only up in the clouds here.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
An incident in which there are two conflicting reactions: a seething moral outrage and “hey, what’s all the fuss?”
What would you do? And [of course] what is the one and only right thing to do?
While the screenplay here is based on a short story written by Raymond Carver, folks who have seen Robert Altman’s Short Cuts will point out that it’s not the first time this tale has been told cinematically. Although in Short Cuts it is but one of many intertwined narratives.
And here the question of race also becomes an important factor when the people in and around Jindabyne react to what happened. The dead women was an Aborigine.
But the question of gender is not too far behind either. After all, does anyone really imagine that, if the body had been stumbled on by women, they would have just left it floating in the water for two days – until they were ready to stop fishing and go home? Sure, for some women. But by and large it is men who are more likely to go about the business of fishing with a corpse just around the bend. It just did not seem to be all that pressing to them. But it’s not like [initially] they reacted to the body with indifference. They were clearly distraught. They simply rationalized what they did.
Then there is the mystery surrounding the death of the woman itself. Who was this man who did it? The electrician. And what exactly did happen? He pops up from time to time but he seems to be more a metaphor for the brute facticity of human existence itself – the things we can’t predict, understand or control. Pure evil as some might say.
Finally, the bizarre behavior of the two children. And Claire’s reaction. In some ways she is clearly an outlier in this working class community. But I found myself wallowing in ambiguity in reacting to her.
Gabriel Byrne accidentally stepped on a Brown Snake, one of the world’s deadliest, while walking through the bush one day on the set. If he’d stepped on the other end he’d have been bitten. Gabriel Byrne told the director Ray Lawrence that he was almost killed, to which Lawrence replied: “No worries mate. You would have had 24 hours.” IMDb
Jindabyne
Title card: members of the aboriginal and torres strait islander communities are advised that this film may contain images and/or voices of deceased persons.
Nobody I'll know then.
Billy [after the hike to the river]: I’ll have to show this place to Elissa.
Stewart: No, no, no, no. No women allowed.
Except for the one decomposing in the water.
Stewart [finding the body]: Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. CARL!!
[he is genuinely shook up]
Stewart: Carl! Rocco! Billy! Where the fuck are you?!!
He'll shift gears eventually.
Stewart: I propose that we leave her here. If she gets carried downstream she’ll end up in the rapids and we’ll never find her.
Billy: I don’t think we should ever have touched her. I mean it’s a crime scene and we have disturbed it.
Carl: For Christ sakes, Billy, shut up.
The body stays.
Billy [on the phone to his girlfriend]: We found this body. I caught the most amazing fish though.
Men!
Stewart [after the police tell him they must wait until they arrive]: We’ve got to get our story straight.
We'll see how that turns out.
Policeman: We don’t step over bodies to enjoy our leisure activities. A pack of bloody idiots. I’m ashamed of you. The whole town is ashamed of you.
Well, they could have just let the body float down into the rapids. Then it would never have been found at all. And you wonder why it didn’t dawn on them to just insist that they had found the body right before they left? Then the part where the explanation revolves more around genes or memes.
Stewart: You think we did the wrong thing by that girl?
Carl: I don’t really have feelings one way or the other. She was dead.
Murdered perhaps?
Claire: What really happened out there?
Stewart: I told you. Nothing happened. We just got stuck is all. Jesus, I don’t know what the fuss is all about. I really don’t.
Claire: What if it had been Tommy in the water?
Stewart: But it wasn’t Tom! It was a stranger!
And just a black woman to boot?
Claire: Last night…how could you have touched me like that after finding her?
Stewart: Claire, I am so exhausted…
Claire: She needed your help.
Stewart: She didn’t need my help…she was beyond help. There was nothing anybody could do for her.
Yes, there's that part. The other part, however, is a crime scene.
Newspaper headline: MEN FISH OVER DEAD BODY: Jindabyne outraged by cruel neglect of four local residents
They're fucked. Though, as I recall, no less confused regarding why.
Claire [viewing the corpse in the morgue]: I wonder who she belongs to? Was she raped?
Detective [nodding]: There was some abrasion. But maybe she was up for it.
Clair: How could you even think that?
Detective: You see this cut around her ankle? Stewart did that when he tethered her to a tree. Too lazy to walk back up to the road. I think maybe they just got off on the whole thing.
Somewhere in the murky middle as is often the case.
Victim’s family on tv news broadcast: They’re animals! I don’t know how any civilized human being could do what they did. And I really wonder how differently they would have acted if she were white.
Stewart [watching it]: Here we go…
He doesn't know the half of it.
Claire: Just tell me…
Stewart: Tell you what?
Claire: How it felt…fishing with her tied up in the water. Just tell me how did it make you feel.
Stewart [wearily]: Please leave this alone.
Claire [pleading]: I just want you to tell me.
Stewart [exploding out of his chair]: It felt good! Is that what do you want me to say? It was a beautiful day, the river was beautiful, I felt so fucking alive!!
[he turns and walks away]
Stewart: Jesus, if that’s a crime I don’t know it.
Claire: I hate the way you did that. I hate the way you end a conversation when you’ve had enough.
Stewart: Well, you know something, I have had enough.
Claire: I hate the way you guzzle your beer, you watch TV, you fuck like a robot!
Steve: I work like a fucking dog! That’s my life! The beer and the fuck are supposed to be a bonus!!
Postmodern love let's call it.
What would you do? And [of course] what is the one and only right thing to do?
While the screenplay here is based on a short story written by Raymond Carver, folks who have seen Robert Altman’s Short Cuts will point out that it’s not the first time this tale has been told cinematically. Although in Short Cuts it is but one of many intertwined narratives.
And here the question of race also becomes an important factor when the people in and around Jindabyne react to what happened. The dead women was an Aborigine.
But the question of gender is not too far behind either. After all, does anyone really imagine that, if the body had been stumbled on by women, they would have just left it floating in the water for two days – until they were ready to stop fishing and go home? Sure, for some women. But by and large it is men who are more likely to go about the business of fishing with a corpse just around the bend. It just did not seem to be all that pressing to them. But it’s not like [initially] they reacted to the body with indifference. They were clearly distraught. They simply rationalized what they did.
Then there is the mystery surrounding the death of the woman itself. Who was this man who did it? The electrician. And what exactly did happen? He pops up from time to time but he seems to be more a metaphor for the brute facticity of human existence itself – the things we can’t predict, understand or control. Pure evil as some might say.
Finally, the bizarre behavior of the two children. And Claire’s reaction. In some ways she is clearly an outlier in this working class community. But I found myself wallowing in ambiguity in reacting to her.
Gabriel Byrne accidentally stepped on a Brown Snake, one of the world’s deadliest, while walking through the bush one day on the set. If he’d stepped on the other end he’d have been bitten. Gabriel Byrne told the director Ray Lawrence that he was almost killed, to which Lawrence replied: “No worries mate. You would have had 24 hours.” IMDb
Jindabyne
Title card: members of the aboriginal and torres strait islander communities are advised that this film may contain images and/or voices of deceased persons.
Nobody I'll know then.
Billy [after the hike to the river]: I’ll have to show this place to Elissa.
Stewart: No, no, no, no. No women allowed.
Except for the one decomposing in the water.
Stewart [finding the body]: Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. CARL!!
[he is genuinely shook up]
Stewart: Carl! Rocco! Billy! Where the fuck are you?!!
He'll shift gears eventually.
Stewart: I propose that we leave her here. If she gets carried downstream she’ll end up in the rapids and we’ll never find her.
Billy: I don’t think we should ever have touched her. I mean it’s a crime scene and we have disturbed it.
Carl: For Christ sakes, Billy, shut up.
The body stays.
Billy [on the phone to his girlfriend]: We found this body. I caught the most amazing fish though.
Men!
Stewart [after the police tell him they must wait until they arrive]: We’ve got to get our story straight.
We'll see how that turns out.
Policeman: We don’t step over bodies to enjoy our leisure activities. A pack of bloody idiots. I’m ashamed of you. The whole town is ashamed of you.
Well, they could have just let the body float down into the rapids. Then it would never have been found at all. And you wonder why it didn’t dawn on them to just insist that they had found the body right before they left? Then the part where the explanation revolves more around genes or memes.
Stewart: You think we did the wrong thing by that girl?
Carl: I don’t really have feelings one way or the other. She was dead.
Murdered perhaps?
Claire: What really happened out there?
Stewart: I told you. Nothing happened. We just got stuck is all. Jesus, I don’t know what the fuss is all about. I really don’t.
Claire: What if it had been Tommy in the water?
Stewart: But it wasn’t Tom! It was a stranger!
And just a black woman to boot?
Claire: Last night…how could you have touched me like that after finding her?
Stewart: Claire, I am so exhausted…
Claire: She needed your help.
Stewart: She didn’t need my help…she was beyond help. There was nothing anybody could do for her.
Yes, there's that part. The other part, however, is a crime scene.
Newspaper headline: MEN FISH OVER DEAD BODY: Jindabyne outraged by cruel neglect of four local residents
They're fucked. Though, as I recall, no less confused regarding why.
Claire [viewing the corpse in the morgue]: I wonder who she belongs to? Was she raped?
Detective [nodding]: There was some abrasion. But maybe she was up for it.
Clair: How could you even think that?
Detective: You see this cut around her ankle? Stewart did that when he tethered her to a tree. Too lazy to walk back up to the road. I think maybe they just got off on the whole thing.
Somewhere in the murky middle as is often the case.
Victim’s family on tv news broadcast: They’re animals! I don’t know how any civilized human being could do what they did. And I really wonder how differently they would have acted if she were white.
Stewart [watching it]: Here we go…
He doesn't know the half of it.
Claire: Just tell me…
Stewart: Tell you what?
Claire: How it felt…fishing with her tied up in the water. Just tell me how did it make you feel.
Stewart [wearily]: Please leave this alone.
Claire [pleading]: I just want you to tell me.
Stewart [exploding out of his chair]: It felt good! Is that what do you want me to say? It was a beautiful day, the river was beautiful, I felt so fucking alive!!
[he turns and walks away]
Stewart: Jesus, if that’s a crime I don’t know it.
Claire: I hate the way you did that. I hate the way you end a conversation when you’ve had enough.
Stewart: Well, you know something, I have had enough.
Claire: I hate the way you guzzle your beer, you watch TV, you fuck like a robot!
Steve: I work like a fucking dog! That’s my life! The beer and the fuck are supposed to be a bonus!!
Postmodern love let's call it.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Sex
“For women, the best aphrodisiacs are words. The G-spot is in the ears. He who looks for it below there is wasting his time.” Isabel Allende
You first.
“Man...heats up like a light bulb: red hot in the twinkling of an eye and cold again in a flash. The female, on the other hand...heats up like an iron. Slowly, over a low heat, like tasty stew. But then, once she has heated up, there's no stopping her.” Carlos Ruiz Zafón
You first.
“Making love to me is amazing. Wait, I meant: making love, to me, is amazing. The absence of two little commas nearly transformed me into a sex god.” Dark Jar Tin Zoo
That never happen to you?
“You know that look that women get when they want to have sex? Me neither.” Steve Martin
So, do virtual looks count?
“I wasn't in love with her. And she didn't love me. For me the question of love was irrelevant. What I sought was the sense of being tossed about by some raging, savage force, in the midst of which lay something absolutely crucial. I had no idea what that was. But I wanted to thrust my hand right inside her body and touch it, whatever it was.” Haruki Murakami
I know what it is. Just ask me.
“We cannot have a world where everyone is a victim. "I'm this way because my father made me this way. I'm this way because my husband made me this way." Yes, we are indeed formed by traumas that happen to us. But then you must take charge, you must take over, you are responsible.” Camille Paglia
My guess: It's different for everyone.
“For women, the best aphrodisiacs are words. The G-spot is in the ears. He who looks for it below there is wasting his time.” Isabel Allende
You first.
“Man...heats up like a light bulb: red hot in the twinkling of an eye and cold again in a flash. The female, on the other hand...heats up like an iron. Slowly, over a low heat, like tasty stew. But then, once she has heated up, there's no stopping her.” Carlos Ruiz Zafón
You first.
“Making love to me is amazing. Wait, I meant: making love, to me, is amazing. The absence of two little commas nearly transformed me into a sex god.” Dark Jar Tin Zoo
That never happen to you?
“You know that look that women get when they want to have sex? Me neither.” Steve Martin
So, do virtual looks count?
“I wasn't in love with her. And she didn't love me. For me the question of love was irrelevant. What I sought was the sense of being tossed about by some raging, savage force, in the midst of which lay something absolutely crucial. I had no idea what that was. But I wanted to thrust my hand right inside her body and touch it, whatever it was.” Haruki Murakami
I know what it is. Just ask me.
“We cannot have a world where everyone is a victim. "I'm this way because my father made me this way. I'm this way because my husband made me this way." Yes, we are indeed formed by traumas that happen to us. But then you must take charge, you must take over, you are responsible.” Camille Paglia
My guess: It's different for everyone.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Identity
“It is in our relations with other people that we gain a sense of ourselves; it's that, pretty much, that makes relations with other people unbearable.” Michel Houellebecq
Tell me about it.
You too?
“He had the vanity to believe men did not like him –- while men simply did not know him.” Gustave Flaubert
Next up: to know him is to hate him.
“Be not another, if you can be yourself.” Paracelsus
Go ahead, rub it in.
"It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note – it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.” Miles Davis
Same here?
“By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs.” Donna Haraway
Cue nature?
“I'm just Phil from Rossendale. And now people are screaming for me 'cause I make YouTube videos - it's just crazy!” Phil Lester
Who are you just? Here, for example.
“It is in our relations with other people that we gain a sense of ourselves; it's that, pretty much, that makes relations with other people unbearable.” Michel Houellebecq
Tell me about it.
You too?
“He had the vanity to believe men did not like him –- while men simply did not know him.” Gustave Flaubert
Next up: to know him is to hate him.
“Be not another, if you can be yourself.” Paracelsus
Go ahead, rub it in.
"It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note – it’s the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.” Miles Davis
Same here?
“By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs.” Donna Haraway
Cue nature?
“I'm just Phil from Rossendale. And now people are screaming for me 'cause I make YouTube videos - it's just crazy!” Phil Lester
Who are you just? Here, for example.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Family. Down through the ages. And arising organically in cultures that span the globe. And thus the extent to which you can use your own as some sort of measuring device is the very embodiment of both arrogance and ignorance.
But apparently the families portrayed here are said to be rather indicative of the 1970s. Or were if the beam is focused on the suburbs of America. And, in particular, if the families fit into the upper middle class demographic. The “Sixties” were fading into memory but it still wasn’t quite the “Reagan era” yet. There remained a lot of liberal sensibilities around [especially in New England] but now they were aimed less towards politics [let alone radical politics] and more towards [among other things] self-gratification, seeking out a psychiatrist [or couples counselor] and participating in the crassest materialism. The sort of “liberation” that might be encompassed at, say, a “key party”. They were all dutifully liberal Democrats [one imagines] but no one was out marching in the streets anymore.
And, as is often the case in movies like this, the children are the creepiest ones of all. And not just Wendy and Sandy. But, then, considering the parents, garbage in garbage out? But that is just a hopelessly subjective reaction of my own.
And all the more reason to weep for the future. Which is basically the time we are living in now. So you can just imagine what the future of our own children will be like.
Are folks in “suburbia” today still this numbingly plastic? Or are they, uh, hipper? Do they, for example, learn their lessons from comic books. You know, from the super-heroes.
The Ice Storm
Paul [voiceover]: In issue 141 of the Fantastic Four, published in November, 1973, Reed Richards had to use his anti-matter weapon on his own son, who Aannihilus has turn into the Human Atom Bomb. It was a typical predicament for the Fantastic Four, because they weren’t like other superheroes. They were more like a family. And the more power they had, the more harm they could do to each other without even knowing it. That was the meaning of the Fantastic Four: that a family is like your own personal anti-matter. Your family is the void you emerge from, and the place you return to when you die. And that’s the paradox - the closer you’re drawn back in, the deeper into the void you go.
See, I told you.
Ben [father, on phone with Paul]: Well, that’s the whole point of the holidays, Paul. So you and your sister can mope around the house, and your mother and I can wait on your hand and foot, while the two of you occasionally grunt for more food from behind the hair in your faces.
I missed that part.
Ben [at a dinner party]: No, my job is just to analyze the entertainment stocks and advise our institutional investors on where to put their money. It’s…
Elena: Don’t be so modest, Ben. It’s a job that requires a certain prescience with regards to entertainment trends. You were the first to predict that Billy Jack would be a hit.
Uh, wow?
Dorothy: And to think they met at a key party of all things.Elena: A key party?
Dorothy: You know, it’s a California thing. That scuzzy husband of hers dragged her kicking and screaming to one when they were out in L.A. You know, the men put their car keys in a bowl, and then at the end of the evening the women line up and fish them out and go home with whoever’s keys they’ve got. Anyhow that’s how she met this Rod person or whatever his name is and he’s left his wife and she’s packing for California. Irwin is devastated. It’s so ironic.
Any scuzzy husbands here? Wives?
Philip: Perhaps you find in books what I try to find in people.
Elena: That sounds vaguely like an insult.
Philip as I recall is both a man of God and a slimeball.
Ben: We were golfing. And golfing, to me, is something I’m supposed to enjoy-- and I was on the goddam golf team in college, so it’s something one would assume I do well-- I used to do well. But basically, these days, golfing for me is like hoeing or plowing. - It’s like farming. And George Clair has obviously-- in the mere two years he’s been with the firm – he’s obviously been taking secret lessons with a golf pro. I bet the entirety of his disposable income has been dedicated…to humiliating me on the golf course. And that guy talks nonstop throughout the entirety of the miserable holes…
Janey: Ben. …
Ben: …on topics that are the supposed domain of my department.
Janey: Ben.
Ben: Yeah?
Janey: You’re boring me. I have a husband. I don’t particularly feel the need for another.
Ben: You have a point there. That’s a very good point. We’re having an affair. Right. An explicitly sexual relationship. Your needs. My needs. You’re absolutely right.
Another slimeball let's say.
Jim: Have you noticed anything with Mikey lately? The kid seemed a little out of it tonight.
Janey: Tonight? Mikey’s been out of it since the day he was born.
Of course, he's no match for Wendy.
Mikey [up in front of the class at school]: Molecules. Because of molecules we are connected to the outside world from our bodies. Like when you smell things, because when you smell a smell it’s not really a smell, it’s a part of the object that has come off of it, molecules. So when you smell something bad, it’s like in a way you’re eating it. This is why you should not really smell things, in the same way that you don’t eat everything in the world around you because as a smell, it gets inside of you. So the next time you go into the bathroom after someone else has been there, remember what kinds of molecules you are in fact eating.
Good to, uh, know?
Paul [voiceover]: To find yourself in the negative zone, as the Fantastic Four often do, means all everyday assumptions are inverted. Even the invisible girl herself becomes visible and so she loses the last semblance of her power. It seems to me that everyone exists partially on a negative zone level, some people more than others. In your life, it’s kind of like you dip in and out of it, a place where things don’t quite work out the way they should. But for some people, the negative zone tempts them. And they end up going in, going in all the way.
It's a comic book world, we just live in it.
Wendy [to Sandy]: I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.
And she means it.
Janey [to Wendy after she catches her showing her’s to Sandy]: A person’s body is his temple, Wendy. This body is your first and last possession. Now as your own parents have probably told you, in adolescence our bodies tend to betray us. That’s why, in Samoa and in other developing nations, adolescents are sent out into the woods, unarmed, and they don’t come back until they’ve learned a thing or two.
Let's bring that back. Only this time virtually.
[Ben explaining the facts of life to his son]
Ben: You know Paul, I’ve been thinking, maybe this is as good a time as any to have a little talk, you know, about…well…about…
Paul: About?
Ben: Well, the whole gamut. Facts of life and all. Some fatherly advice, because, I tell you, there’s things happening that you’re probably old enough…and, well…on the self-abuse front - and this is important. I don’t think it’s advisable to do it in the shower. It wastes water and electricity and because we all expect you to be doing it there in any case. And, not on…under the linen…Well, anyway, if you’re worried about anything at all, just feel free to ask and we’ll look it up.
Paul: Uh, dad, you know I’m 16.
Ben: All the more reason for this little heart to heart…
[Paul says nothing…then…]
Ben: Um, Paul. On second thought, can you do me a favor and pretend I never said any of that.
Paul: Sure dad.
They're practically best buds.
Wendy [saying grace at Thanksgiving]: Dear Lord, thank you for this Thanksgiving holiday. And for all the material possessions we have and enjoy. And for letting us white people kill all the Indians and steal their tribal lands. And stuff ourselves like pigs, even though children in Asia are being napalmed.
Ben:Okay, Okay. Jesus! Enough, alright?..Paul, roll? Can I have the gravy?
And now she's a Yellowjacket.
Ben: You know, I think Elena might suspect something. Or maybe it’s all for the better, you know? Yesterday, at dinner, well, she hasn’t said anything… has she acted funny to you, I mean, have you noticed anything?
Janey: Have I noticed anything? I’m not married to her Benjamin, you are. I think you’ve probably
a better vantage point from which to observe her.
Ben: Yeah, but, I – I’ve been working a lot lately, and – No, that’s not it. I guess we’ve just been on the verge of saying something, whatever it is, just saying something to each other. On the verge.
They still are. Well, probably.
Philip: Sometimes the shepherd needs the comfort of the sheep.
Elena: I’m going to try hard not to understand the implications of that.
Next up: the implications of the key party.
Paul [voiceover]: When you think about it, it’s not easy to keep from just wandering out of life. It’s like someone’s always leaving the door open to the next world, and if you aren’t paying attention you could just walk through it, and then you’ve died. That’s why in your dreams it’s like you’re standing in that doorway…and the dying people and the newborn people pass by you and brush up against you as they come in and out of the world during the night. You get spun around, and in the morning…it takes a while to find your way back into the world.
Tell that to...Libbets?
But apparently the families portrayed here are said to be rather indicative of the 1970s. Or were if the beam is focused on the suburbs of America. And, in particular, if the families fit into the upper middle class demographic. The “Sixties” were fading into memory but it still wasn’t quite the “Reagan era” yet. There remained a lot of liberal sensibilities around [especially in New England] but now they were aimed less towards politics [let alone radical politics] and more towards [among other things] self-gratification, seeking out a psychiatrist [or couples counselor] and participating in the crassest materialism. The sort of “liberation” that might be encompassed at, say, a “key party”. They were all dutifully liberal Democrats [one imagines] but no one was out marching in the streets anymore.
And, as is often the case in movies like this, the children are the creepiest ones of all. And not just Wendy and Sandy. But, then, considering the parents, garbage in garbage out? But that is just a hopelessly subjective reaction of my own.
And all the more reason to weep for the future. Which is basically the time we are living in now. So you can just imagine what the future of our own children will be like.
Are folks in “suburbia” today still this numbingly plastic? Or are they, uh, hipper? Do they, for example, learn their lessons from comic books. You know, from the super-heroes.
The Ice Storm
Paul [voiceover]: In issue 141 of the Fantastic Four, published in November, 1973, Reed Richards had to use his anti-matter weapon on his own son, who Aannihilus has turn into the Human Atom Bomb. It was a typical predicament for the Fantastic Four, because they weren’t like other superheroes. They were more like a family. And the more power they had, the more harm they could do to each other without even knowing it. That was the meaning of the Fantastic Four: that a family is like your own personal anti-matter. Your family is the void you emerge from, and the place you return to when you die. And that’s the paradox - the closer you’re drawn back in, the deeper into the void you go.
See, I told you.
Ben [father, on phone with Paul]: Well, that’s the whole point of the holidays, Paul. So you and your sister can mope around the house, and your mother and I can wait on your hand and foot, while the two of you occasionally grunt for more food from behind the hair in your faces.
I missed that part.
Ben [at a dinner party]: No, my job is just to analyze the entertainment stocks and advise our institutional investors on where to put their money. It’s…
Elena: Don’t be so modest, Ben. It’s a job that requires a certain prescience with regards to entertainment trends. You were the first to predict that Billy Jack would be a hit.
Uh, wow?
Dorothy: And to think they met at a key party of all things.Elena: A key party?
Dorothy: You know, it’s a California thing. That scuzzy husband of hers dragged her kicking and screaming to one when they were out in L.A. You know, the men put their car keys in a bowl, and then at the end of the evening the women line up and fish them out and go home with whoever’s keys they’ve got. Anyhow that’s how she met this Rod person or whatever his name is and he’s left his wife and she’s packing for California. Irwin is devastated. It’s so ironic.
Any scuzzy husbands here? Wives?
Philip: Perhaps you find in books what I try to find in people.
Elena: That sounds vaguely like an insult.
Philip as I recall is both a man of God and a slimeball.
Ben: We were golfing. And golfing, to me, is something I’m supposed to enjoy-- and I was on the goddam golf team in college, so it’s something one would assume I do well-- I used to do well. But basically, these days, golfing for me is like hoeing or plowing. - It’s like farming. And George Clair has obviously-- in the mere two years he’s been with the firm – he’s obviously been taking secret lessons with a golf pro. I bet the entirety of his disposable income has been dedicated…to humiliating me on the golf course. And that guy talks nonstop throughout the entirety of the miserable holes…
Janey: Ben. …
Ben: …on topics that are the supposed domain of my department.
Janey: Ben.
Ben: Yeah?
Janey: You’re boring me. I have a husband. I don’t particularly feel the need for another.
Ben: You have a point there. That’s a very good point. We’re having an affair. Right. An explicitly sexual relationship. Your needs. My needs. You’re absolutely right.
Another slimeball let's say.
Jim: Have you noticed anything with Mikey lately? The kid seemed a little out of it tonight.
Janey: Tonight? Mikey’s been out of it since the day he was born.
Of course, he's no match for Wendy.
Mikey [up in front of the class at school]: Molecules. Because of molecules we are connected to the outside world from our bodies. Like when you smell things, because when you smell a smell it’s not really a smell, it’s a part of the object that has come off of it, molecules. So when you smell something bad, it’s like in a way you’re eating it. This is why you should not really smell things, in the same way that you don’t eat everything in the world around you because as a smell, it gets inside of you. So the next time you go into the bathroom after someone else has been there, remember what kinds of molecules you are in fact eating.
Good to, uh, know?
Paul [voiceover]: To find yourself in the negative zone, as the Fantastic Four often do, means all everyday assumptions are inverted. Even the invisible girl herself becomes visible and so she loses the last semblance of her power. It seems to me that everyone exists partially on a negative zone level, some people more than others. In your life, it’s kind of like you dip in and out of it, a place where things don’t quite work out the way they should. But for some people, the negative zone tempts them. And they end up going in, going in all the way.
It's a comic book world, we just live in it.
Wendy [to Sandy]: I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.
And she means it.
Janey [to Wendy after she catches her showing her’s to Sandy]: A person’s body is his temple, Wendy. This body is your first and last possession. Now as your own parents have probably told you, in adolescence our bodies tend to betray us. That’s why, in Samoa and in other developing nations, adolescents are sent out into the woods, unarmed, and they don’t come back until they’ve learned a thing or two.
Let's bring that back. Only this time virtually.
[Ben explaining the facts of life to his son]
Ben: You know Paul, I’ve been thinking, maybe this is as good a time as any to have a little talk, you know, about…well…about…
Paul: About?
Ben: Well, the whole gamut. Facts of life and all. Some fatherly advice, because, I tell you, there’s things happening that you’re probably old enough…and, well…on the self-abuse front - and this is important. I don’t think it’s advisable to do it in the shower. It wastes water and electricity and because we all expect you to be doing it there in any case. And, not on…under the linen…Well, anyway, if you’re worried about anything at all, just feel free to ask and we’ll look it up.
Paul: Uh, dad, you know I’m 16.
Ben: All the more reason for this little heart to heart…
[Paul says nothing…then…]
Ben: Um, Paul. On second thought, can you do me a favor and pretend I never said any of that.
Paul: Sure dad.
They're practically best buds.
Wendy [saying grace at Thanksgiving]: Dear Lord, thank you for this Thanksgiving holiday. And for all the material possessions we have and enjoy. And for letting us white people kill all the Indians and steal their tribal lands. And stuff ourselves like pigs, even though children in Asia are being napalmed.
Ben:Okay, Okay. Jesus! Enough, alright?..Paul, roll? Can I have the gravy?
And now she's a Yellowjacket.
Ben: You know, I think Elena might suspect something. Or maybe it’s all for the better, you know? Yesterday, at dinner, well, she hasn’t said anything… has she acted funny to you, I mean, have you noticed anything?
Janey: Have I noticed anything? I’m not married to her Benjamin, you are. I think you’ve probably
a better vantage point from which to observe her.
Ben: Yeah, but, I – I’ve been working a lot lately, and – No, that’s not it. I guess we’ve just been on the verge of saying something, whatever it is, just saying something to each other. On the verge.
They still are. Well, probably.
Philip: Sometimes the shepherd needs the comfort of the sheep.
Elena: I’m going to try hard not to understand the implications of that.
Next up: the implications of the key party.
Paul [voiceover]: When you think about it, it’s not easy to keep from just wandering out of life. It’s like someone’s always leaving the door open to the next world, and if you aren’t paying attention you could just walk through it, and then you’ve died. That’s why in your dreams it’s like you’re standing in that doorway…and the dying people and the newborn people pass by you and brush up against you as they come in and out of the world during the night. You get spun around, and in the morning…it takes a while to find your way back into the world.
Tell that to...Libbets?
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
I would imagine that many [okay, some] will react to characters like this with both contempt and envy: “What complete assholes…I wish I could be one of them.”
Is that how I reacted? I’ll never tell.
Basically, this is the sort of movie that draws you into the “spectacle” of it all. The plot is particularly unbelievable and it’s not like many will really care how it ends. Or even care much about the characters themselves. And to tell you the truth I didn’t even really know what the hell was going on at times. For one thing, it takes “coincidence” to a new height of absurdity. Or is this somehow integrated into the plot itself…into the point De Palma is trying to make. But, again, you have to care about that in order to invest the time in thinking it through.
And it got [mostly] shitty reviews. On the other hand, Roger Ebert gave it a 4 out of 4 stars thumbs up. And it has been designated to be one of those “cult classic” films by folks who know about these things.
But I didn’t care one way or the other. It was just a tantalizing exercise in excess. And, if anything, a Brian De Palma film might touch down anywhere. For every Dressed To Kill there’s a Bonfire of the Vanities.
Whatever that means?
What goes on? The elaborate heist. The cunning double cross. The seething plot for revenge. And then the part where Nicolas and Watts and Lily come into play. Go ahead, see if you can follow it all the way through coherently.
Femme Fatale
[the film opens with that classic scene from Double Indemnity]
Walter: For once I believe you, because you’re just rotten enough.
Phyllis: We’re both rotten.
Walter: And maybe you are a little more rotten. You got me to take care of your husband for you. And you get Zahgetti to take care of Lola, maybe take care of me too. And somebody else would have come along to take care of Zahgetti for you. That’s the way you operated, isn’t it baby.
Phyllis: Suppose it is? It’s what you’ve got cooked up for tonight any better?
Walter: I don’t like that music anymore. You mind if I close the window?
[as he shuts the window she shoots him]
Walter: You can do better than that, can’t you baby? Better try it again. Maybe if I come a little closer? How’s this? Think you can do it now?
[she doesn’t shoot…he reaches out and takes the gun]
Walter: Why didn’t you shoot again, baby? Don’t tell me it’s because you’ve been in love with me all this time.
Phyllis: No. I never loved you Walter, not you or anybody else. I’m rotten to the heart. I used you just as you said. That’s all you ever meant to me…until a minute ago…when I couldn’t fire that second shot.
What does this have to do with De Palma’s film? Well, I have my hunches.
Laure: Hey! What the fuck are you doing?
Nicolas: Excuse me, madame but I believe this is a free country. And I’m entitled to take any picture of anything…and anyone…I want from my balcony.
Laure: Go fuck yourself!
And they're off!
Laure [looking at a photograph of Lily]: Holy shit!
Take a wild guess.
Black Tie: Wow. Nice wheels!
Racine: What did you expect? I only steal the best!
Next up: plagiarizing the best.
Black Tie [to Racine]: I thought about her every fucking second of every fucking minute for seven fucking years!
And it wasn't about fucking her either.
Nicolas: When a classy woman like yourself checks into an airport hotel, in the middle of the morning with a bunch of bullets and a gun, there’s only one word that follows.
Laure: What word?
Nicolas: “Bang”.
Three words sometimes: "Bang! Bang! You're dead!"
Laure: My husband. He has difficulty to control his temper.
Nicolas: Why does he lose it?
Laure: Because I can’t live with him here.
Nicolas: Why not?
Laure: I have a past here. I was safe in the States but here…it only takes one photo.
Nicolas: Like the one today? I took that picture.
Laure: So “Harry” is Nicolas Bardo?
She should talk!
French cop: The American ambassador beats his wife?
Nicolas: Yes, that’s right. Yes, and she has the face to prove it.
No, not quite.
Laure: I’m a bad girl, Nicolas. Real bad. Rotten to the heart. Last scrape I was in I fucked up a lot of people. Bad people. People like me. People that don’t forget. But I was given a second chance. So I went back to the States where I got everything a bad girl ever wanted. Fucking Watts! He was sweet, until being the richest man in the world wasn’t enough. He had to have public glory. So he gave away a ton of money and bought himself the French Ambassadorship. Which meant the Misses got dragged out into the Parisian limelight. Well, I couldn’t do that Nicolas…'cause bad people read newspapers too.
Bad and beautiful. Either that or the other way around.
Laure [to Nicolas]: Hey how come you’re the only man in this room who doesn’t want to fuck me?
Let's run that by, well, you know.
Laure: Come on, Nicolas! You don’t have to lick my ass. Just fuck me.
Nicolas: You know what?
Laure: What?
Nicolas: We can still go away. Both of us. Together.
Laure: That’s so sweet. That’s so romantic. But without the money? Are you nuts?!
Oh, yeah, that part.
Nicolas: That’s a choice. A bad choice. There are other ones.
Laure: What? Like doing the right thing?
Nicolas: That’s a start.
Laure: I tried that once, Nicolas. And you know what it got me? A lifetime of looking over my shoulder. You know why no good deed goes unpunished? Because this world is hell and you’re nothing but a fucking patsy.
Hell, I was once this optimistic myself.
Nicolas [after Laure kills her husband]: You killed him.
Laure: Just being careful.
That'll do it.
Black Tie: That fucking bitch. She’s at it again!
Unless, of course, this has all been a dream. Starting from…?
Your guess is as good as mine. Or, again, does that even matter?
Nicolas: I’m sorry. You look so familiar. Haven’t we met before? Somewhere?
Laure: Only in my dreams.
See what I mean?
Is that how I reacted? I’ll never tell.
Basically, this is the sort of movie that draws you into the “spectacle” of it all. The plot is particularly unbelievable and it’s not like many will really care how it ends. Or even care much about the characters themselves. And to tell you the truth I didn’t even really know what the hell was going on at times. For one thing, it takes “coincidence” to a new height of absurdity. Or is this somehow integrated into the plot itself…into the point De Palma is trying to make. But, again, you have to care about that in order to invest the time in thinking it through.
And it got [mostly] shitty reviews. On the other hand, Roger Ebert gave it a 4 out of 4 stars thumbs up. And it has been designated to be one of those “cult classic” films by folks who know about these things.
But I didn’t care one way or the other. It was just a tantalizing exercise in excess. And, if anything, a Brian De Palma film might touch down anywhere. For every Dressed To Kill there’s a Bonfire of the Vanities.
Whatever that means?
What goes on? The elaborate heist. The cunning double cross. The seething plot for revenge. And then the part where Nicolas and Watts and Lily come into play. Go ahead, see if you can follow it all the way through coherently.
Femme Fatale
[the film opens with that classic scene from Double Indemnity]
Walter: For once I believe you, because you’re just rotten enough.
Phyllis: We’re both rotten.
Walter: And maybe you are a little more rotten. You got me to take care of your husband for you. And you get Zahgetti to take care of Lola, maybe take care of me too. And somebody else would have come along to take care of Zahgetti for you. That’s the way you operated, isn’t it baby.
Phyllis: Suppose it is? It’s what you’ve got cooked up for tonight any better?
Walter: I don’t like that music anymore. You mind if I close the window?
[as he shuts the window she shoots him]
Walter: You can do better than that, can’t you baby? Better try it again. Maybe if I come a little closer? How’s this? Think you can do it now?
[she doesn’t shoot…he reaches out and takes the gun]
Walter: Why didn’t you shoot again, baby? Don’t tell me it’s because you’ve been in love with me all this time.
Phyllis: No. I never loved you Walter, not you or anybody else. I’m rotten to the heart. I used you just as you said. That’s all you ever meant to me…until a minute ago…when I couldn’t fire that second shot.
What does this have to do with De Palma’s film? Well, I have my hunches.
Laure: Hey! What the fuck are you doing?
Nicolas: Excuse me, madame but I believe this is a free country. And I’m entitled to take any picture of anything…and anyone…I want from my balcony.
Laure: Go fuck yourself!
And they're off!
Laure [looking at a photograph of Lily]: Holy shit!
Take a wild guess.
Black Tie: Wow. Nice wheels!
Racine: What did you expect? I only steal the best!
Next up: plagiarizing the best.
Black Tie [to Racine]: I thought about her every fucking second of every fucking minute for seven fucking years!
And it wasn't about fucking her either.
Nicolas: When a classy woman like yourself checks into an airport hotel, in the middle of the morning with a bunch of bullets and a gun, there’s only one word that follows.
Laure: What word?
Nicolas: “Bang”.
Three words sometimes: "Bang! Bang! You're dead!"
Laure: My husband. He has difficulty to control his temper.
Nicolas: Why does he lose it?
Laure: Because I can’t live with him here.
Nicolas: Why not?
Laure: I have a past here. I was safe in the States but here…it only takes one photo.
Nicolas: Like the one today? I took that picture.
Laure: So “Harry” is Nicolas Bardo?
She should talk!
French cop: The American ambassador beats his wife?
Nicolas: Yes, that’s right. Yes, and she has the face to prove it.
No, not quite.
Laure: I’m a bad girl, Nicolas. Real bad. Rotten to the heart. Last scrape I was in I fucked up a lot of people. Bad people. People like me. People that don’t forget. But I was given a second chance. So I went back to the States where I got everything a bad girl ever wanted. Fucking Watts! He was sweet, until being the richest man in the world wasn’t enough. He had to have public glory. So he gave away a ton of money and bought himself the French Ambassadorship. Which meant the Misses got dragged out into the Parisian limelight. Well, I couldn’t do that Nicolas…'cause bad people read newspapers too.
Bad and beautiful. Either that or the other way around.
Laure [to Nicolas]: Hey how come you’re the only man in this room who doesn’t want to fuck me?
Let's run that by, well, you know.
Laure: Come on, Nicolas! You don’t have to lick my ass. Just fuck me.
Nicolas: You know what?
Laure: What?
Nicolas: We can still go away. Both of us. Together.
Laure: That’s so sweet. That’s so romantic. But without the money? Are you nuts?!
Oh, yeah, that part.
Nicolas: That’s a choice. A bad choice. There are other ones.
Laure: What? Like doing the right thing?
Nicolas: That’s a start.
Laure: I tried that once, Nicolas. And you know what it got me? A lifetime of looking over my shoulder. You know why no good deed goes unpunished? Because this world is hell and you’re nothing but a fucking patsy.
Hell, I was once this optimistic myself.
Nicolas [after Laure kills her husband]: You killed him.
Laure: Just being careful.
That'll do it.
Black Tie: That fucking bitch. She’s at it again!
Unless, of course, this has all been a dream. Starting from…?
Your guess is as good as mine. Or, again, does that even matter?
Nicolas: I’m sorry. You look so familiar. Haven’t we met before? Somewhere?
Laure: Only in my dreams.
See what I mean?
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Abyss
“We never know self-realization. We are two abysses -- a well staring at the sky.” Fernando Pessoa
I'll let you into mine if you let me into yours.
“What a tiny part of the boundless abyss of time has been allotted to each of us – and this is soon vanished in eternity; what a tiny part of the universal substance and the universal soul; how tiny in the whole earth the mere clod on which you creep.”― Marcus Aurelius
The human condition, let's call it.
“There is a way to overcome every abyss, as long as your mind does not see the abyss as insurmountable!” Mehmet Murat ildan
Well, not counting the last one.
“If you become involved with me, you will be throwing yourself into the abyss.” Franz Kafka
Headlong as it were.
“We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop seeing it.” Blaise Pascal
That can't be good.
“Ignorance is not bliss, it is an abyss.” C.A.A. Savastano
Like it can't be both.
“We never know self-realization. We are two abysses -- a well staring at the sky.” Fernando Pessoa
I'll let you into mine if you let me into yours.
“What a tiny part of the boundless abyss of time has been allotted to each of us – and this is soon vanished in eternity; what a tiny part of the universal substance and the universal soul; how tiny in the whole earth the mere clod on which you creep.”― Marcus Aurelius
The human condition, let's call it.
“There is a way to overcome every abyss, as long as your mind does not see the abyss as insurmountable!” Mehmet Murat ildan
Well, not counting the last one.
“If you become involved with me, you will be throwing yourself into the abyss.” Franz Kafka
Headlong as it were.
“We run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop seeing it.” Blaise Pascal
That can't be good.
“Ignorance is not bliss, it is an abyss.” C.A.A. Savastano
Like it can't be both.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
The sessions revolve around sex. Folks [for any number of reasons] are able to hire other folks to, well, fuck them. Among other things.
So, of course: how is this the same as or different from prostitution? For example, morally and legally. She explains that. Here, the man hiring the sex “surrogate” does so with the help of both his priest and his therapist. Mark has a “crippled body” and is utterly dependent on others to sustain his existence from day to day. But his mind is still “crisp and clear”. A harrowing combination to say the least. On top of that, his body is fully functional sexually. He is just not able to act on it as others are. He is not exactly paralyzed but he has a very, very limited capacity regarding the use of his muscles. Also, he has to spend most of the day in a lung machine.
As for being a surrogate, her husband seems to have no objections. At least at first. And other than being a sex surrogate, she is described as “a typical soccer Mom”.
Does this film explore all of this intelligently? You bet. And we know these things happened because the film is based on actual events. It is adapted from this article by Mark O’Brien: https://noteasybeingred.tumblr.com/post ... ark-obrian
Mark died in 1999. He was 49 years old.
Of course they also have to deal with what often happens in any sort of therapy: the patient’s increasing emotional bond with the therapist. Transference they call it. And it works both ways.
I found myself thinking over and again: could I, would I live like this? I still don’t have an answer.
Look for Helen Hunt really, really naked. And for a really, really long time. Now, I have not particularly followed her career, but from what I have seen of her work, I was rather surprised seeing her in this role. This is a long, long, long way from Mad About You.
And look for Carla Tortelli.
The Sessions
Reporter [voiceover]: Mark O’Brien has been going to UC Berkeley since 1978. That’s O’Brien in the motorized gurney heading for class last week. He had polio when he was six years old. The disease left his body crippled, but his mind remained sharp and alert. And since he wanted to be a writer, Mark O’Brien entered Cal to major in English and learn his trade.
Praise the Lord?
Mark [voiceover…lying in iron lung]: Breathing. This most excellent canopy, the air, presses down upon me at fifteen pounds per square inch. A dense, heavy, blue glowing ocean, teasing me with its nearness and immensity. And all I get is a thin stream of it. A finger’s width of the rope that ties me to life.
The pinkie.
Mark: The most immediate thing on my mind Father, would be my attendant, Joan. I’m thinking of getting rid of her. It’s an evil thought, but I can’t help it.
Father Brendan: Is she dishonest, or incompetent?
Mark: No, neither of those. She looks at me the wrong way. It’s that you-need-me-more-than-I-need-you look. I’d like to show her she’s wrong, just for the evil satisfaction it will give me. Is that a sin, Father?
Apparently not.
Sandy [on phone from Pacific News Service]: Mark, we’ve gotten sponsorships to do a series on sex and the disabled and we’d like you to do some interviews in the Berkeley area. Could you do that?
Mark: Why now?
Sandy: Because we’ve got the money now. But if you’re working on something else, then we can talk about it later.
Mark: No, now is fine.
Mark [voiceover]: There was no escaping it. A door had opened which I could not close, and in invisible writing it said: “Do not enter”.
So, enter it he does.
Mark: My penis speaks to me, Father Brendan. Sometimes I ejaculate during a bed bath in front of my attendant. All I feel is shame and mortification, while other men, apparently, get pleasure. I’m sorry if I sound angry.
Don't even think you can understand it from his frame of mind.
Father Brendan [to Mark]: This is what you want my my advice on…fornication?
Yep.
Mark: So, is it possible for me to know a woman, in the biblical sense, and do I want to find out?
Father Brendan: And you want my opinion?
Mark: Please, as a friend.
Father Brendan [he looks up at the statue of Jesus, then makes a decision]: I know in my heart that He’ll give you a free pass on this one. Go for it.
Yo, IC: is that something a True Christian would sanction?
Vera: Will you stop acting like you’re going to your own execution.
Mark: I’m not acting.
Scared shitless, let's say.
Cheryl: Hi Mark O’Brien!
Mark: Your money is on the desk over there.
Cheryl: Yes it is! Thank you!
Mark: That was the wrong way to start off.
Cheryl: It really was. Shall we start again?
Mark: Please. You start.
Cheryl: Although the aim is for us to have sex, I’m not a prostitute, so you don’t have to pay me up front. I have nothing against prostitutes but there is a difference. We can talk about that later.
New thread?
Cheryl: I understand you’re able to have an erection.
Mark: Yes, but not by choice.
Really, imagine that.
Cheryl: Do you know how many men there are on this planet who would give anything for a natural erection?
Next up: a virtual erection?
Cheryl: Shall we get undressed?
Mark: Sure!
Actually, he is anything but sure.
Cheryl: So, the difference between me and a prostitute is that I don’t want your return business. I’m here to help you communicate about your sexual feelings, so you can share them with a future partner.
Of course, he falls in love with her.
Cheryl [taking Mark’s hand from one breast to the other]: When you touch one you have to touch the other. It’s sort of a rule.
Tell that to his lips.
Mark: She complemented me on my shirt, my hair. She held my penis. I haven’t even seen my penis for over 30 years. Am I sharing too much, Father?
Father Brendan: No, no, I’m used to it.
If you get his drift.
Cheryl: Next week, Friday the twentieth, same time?
Mark: That’s good for me.
Cheryl: Next time we’ll start to work on intercourse.
The look on Mark's face.
Cheryl [dictating into a tape recorder]: First session. Mark is the oldest of four children and raised Catholic. He was extremely nervous. He yelled a lot when I took off his shirt, but I think more out of fear than pain. He cannot masturbate. Has only had the occasional kissing experience. He is capable of achieving an erection easily, but the unusual curvature of his body could be a serious obstacle to intercourse.
But she accepts the challenge.
Mark [to Father Brendan]: I did it again. This time I ejaculated on her thigh.
He is getting closer though.
Mark: It won’t fit! It’s not going to fit!
Cheryl: No, Mark, it will fit just fine.
Mark: No, it’s dangerous. It’s too big!
Cheryl: It’s not too big. Relax.
Mark: It won’t fit. It’ll hurt. It’s too risky.
Cheryl: Please, stop this. I promise you, nothing bad will happen. Now, let’s try again while you’re still hard.
And again and again and again as I recall.
Cheryl [after – yet again – Mark’s very premature ejaculation]: We still have some time. We can talk, which you seem to like, or you can suck on my nipples, which you also seem to like.
Who wouldn't?
Cheryl [dictating into tape recorder]: I believe the root of his anxiety is his parents and his religion. He believes he doesn’t deserve sex…We discussed his fantasies, which were mostly masochistic. Again, the idea of being punished. He’s never seen female genitalia before and seems quite frightened at the thought of it.
You have to see it to believe it.
[Mark is gasping for air with Cheryl sitting on his face]
Cheryl: Are you okay down there?Mark: I’m choking!
Cheryl [getting off of Mark]: Oh my God!
[she puts Mark’s mouthpiece between his lips]
Cheryl: Well, I guess that’s off the menu until further notice.
Darn.
Cheryl: I grew up in Salem, brought up Catholic, like you, but the church didn’t appreciate my attitude towards sex.
Mark: You had an attitude towards sex?
Cheryl: Yes, I liked it. They like to think they threw me out, but I threw them out. So for years I didn’t believe in anything, and now I’m converting to Judaism.
Mark: Well, it’s good to have some kind of insurance.
The human condition!
Cheryl [to Mark]: You did great today. You’re a fully-fledged male homosapien endowed with a handsome and substantial penis, which now has a proven track record.
Can you say that?
Mark: Was I really inside you?
Cheryl: You were really and truly inside me.
Mark: For how long?
Cheryl: Five or six seconds.
Mark: Is that all?
Cheryl: That’s a long time for some people.
She means for men of course.
Cheryl [dictating into a tape recorder]: Mark appears to be indulging in typical transference behaviour. This is not unusual after first successful intercourse, but I think he is especially susceptible. He cannot help seeing me as the multi- functional, all-purpose woman, mother, sister, schoolmistress, whore, lover and best friend. At the same time, his anxiety about sexual performance has diminished.
Yep, that's how transference works alright.
Motel Clerk: Now, come on, what kind of therapist is she?
Vera: I told you the first time, she’s a sex therapist. Today they’re working on “simultaneous orgasm”.
Motel Clerk: What’s that?
Anyone here not know?
Mark: What happens when…?
Cheryl: What happens when what?
Mark: When people become attached to each other.
Cheryl: What people?
Mark: Just people. What’s the chemistry in it all? When people are attracted to each other.
Cheryl: Are you attracted to me?
Mark: [facetiously]: God, no.
[Cheryl laughs]
Mark: I’m just talking hypothetically.
Cheryl: Hypothetically… they write poems. They have sex.
Mark: And what happens next?
Cheryl: After poetry and sex? Nothing or everything. The rest is by negotiation, as it were.
Mark: What do you mean?
Cheryl: I mean, you can leave it at love and attraction… or you can make things complicated, like most people do.
Mark: Have you?
Cheryl: Yes.
Transference and then some.
[the power goes out and Mark is alone]
Mark [leaving a phone message]: Rod. I need your help. The power’s gone out…including the pump on the iron lung. I’d say I got about three hours before I start to turn blue.
[he tries dialing 911 but drops the mouthpiece]
Mark: So this is how it ends.
You wonder if this part is true. Alone in his condition? No contingency plan for a power outage?
Susan [rather incredulously]: Are you religious?
Mark: Yes, I would find it absolutely intolerable not to be to able blame someone for all this. Are you?
Susan: No, I don’t go to any church, or…I don’t think about God very much. I do believe there’s a mysterious logic or poetry to life. I guess that makes me a spiritual type.
Mark: Yes. That would count.
Hell, almost anything counts these days.
Susan: Would you like me to visit you?
Mark: Are you married?
Susan: No.
Mark: Do you have a steady boyfriend?
Susan: No.
Mark: Then please visit as often as you can.
Mark moves on.
Mark: There’s just one more thing I want to tell you. I’m not a virgin.
Susan: So, are you in a relationship at the moment?
Mark: No, it was a passing thing.
Susan: Thanks for sharing that with me.
Right, a passing thing.
Mark [voiceover]: I met Susan five years before I died. She was the love of my life. We had the same priorities, baseball pretty much came first, and we wrote each other mushy poems. I never expected it, nor did she, but that’s often the way things turn out. They say there is a cup of life which is either half empty or half full depending on how you freel about things. Of course the two halves were never even. Not in my case, that’s for sure. I mean, look at all the years of unendurable crap I’ve had to put up with. That fills most of the cup. But in the little bit that’s left what do I have to show for myself? At the very least three beautiful women who all loved me…and who will all show up at my funeral.
Just imagine it.
So, of course: how is this the same as or different from prostitution? For example, morally and legally. She explains that. Here, the man hiring the sex “surrogate” does so with the help of both his priest and his therapist. Mark has a “crippled body” and is utterly dependent on others to sustain his existence from day to day. But his mind is still “crisp and clear”. A harrowing combination to say the least. On top of that, his body is fully functional sexually. He is just not able to act on it as others are. He is not exactly paralyzed but he has a very, very limited capacity regarding the use of his muscles. Also, he has to spend most of the day in a lung machine.
As for being a surrogate, her husband seems to have no objections. At least at first. And other than being a sex surrogate, she is described as “a typical soccer Mom”.
Does this film explore all of this intelligently? You bet. And we know these things happened because the film is based on actual events. It is adapted from this article by Mark O’Brien: https://noteasybeingred.tumblr.com/post ... ark-obrian
Mark died in 1999. He was 49 years old.
Of course they also have to deal with what often happens in any sort of therapy: the patient’s increasing emotional bond with the therapist. Transference they call it. And it works both ways.
I found myself thinking over and again: could I, would I live like this? I still don’t have an answer.
Look for Helen Hunt really, really naked. And for a really, really long time. Now, I have not particularly followed her career, but from what I have seen of her work, I was rather surprised seeing her in this role. This is a long, long, long way from Mad About You.
And look for Carla Tortelli.
The Sessions
Reporter [voiceover]: Mark O’Brien has been going to UC Berkeley since 1978. That’s O’Brien in the motorized gurney heading for class last week. He had polio when he was six years old. The disease left his body crippled, but his mind remained sharp and alert. And since he wanted to be a writer, Mark O’Brien entered Cal to major in English and learn his trade.
Praise the Lord?
Mark [voiceover…lying in iron lung]: Breathing. This most excellent canopy, the air, presses down upon me at fifteen pounds per square inch. A dense, heavy, blue glowing ocean, teasing me with its nearness and immensity. And all I get is a thin stream of it. A finger’s width of the rope that ties me to life.
The pinkie.
Mark: The most immediate thing on my mind Father, would be my attendant, Joan. I’m thinking of getting rid of her. It’s an evil thought, but I can’t help it.
Father Brendan: Is she dishonest, or incompetent?
Mark: No, neither of those. She looks at me the wrong way. It’s that you-need-me-more-than-I-need-you look. I’d like to show her she’s wrong, just for the evil satisfaction it will give me. Is that a sin, Father?
Apparently not.
Sandy [on phone from Pacific News Service]: Mark, we’ve gotten sponsorships to do a series on sex and the disabled and we’d like you to do some interviews in the Berkeley area. Could you do that?
Mark: Why now?
Sandy: Because we’ve got the money now. But if you’re working on something else, then we can talk about it later.
Mark: No, now is fine.
Mark [voiceover]: There was no escaping it. A door had opened which I could not close, and in invisible writing it said: “Do not enter”.
So, enter it he does.
Mark: My penis speaks to me, Father Brendan. Sometimes I ejaculate during a bed bath in front of my attendant. All I feel is shame and mortification, while other men, apparently, get pleasure. I’m sorry if I sound angry.
Don't even think you can understand it from his frame of mind.
Father Brendan [to Mark]: This is what you want my my advice on…fornication?
Yep.
Mark: So, is it possible for me to know a woman, in the biblical sense, and do I want to find out?
Father Brendan: And you want my opinion?
Mark: Please, as a friend.
Father Brendan [he looks up at the statue of Jesus, then makes a decision]: I know in my heart that He’ll give you a free pass on this one. Go for it.
Yo, IC: is that something a True Christian would sanction?
Vera: Will you stop acting like you’re going to your own execution.
Mark: I’m not acting.
Scared shitless, let's say.
Cheryl: Hi Mark O’Brien!
Mark: Your money is on the desk over there.
Cheryl: Yes it is! Thank you!
Mark: That was the wrong way to start off.
Cheryl: It really was. Shall we start again?
Mark: Please. You start.
Cheryl: Although the aim is for us to have sex, I’m not a prostitute, so you don’t have to pay me up front. I have nothing against prostitutes but there is a difference. We can talk about that later.
New thread?
Cheryl: I understand you’re able to have an erection.
Mark: Yes, but not by choice.
Really, imagine that.
Cheryl: Do you know how many men there are on this planet who would give anything for a natural erection?
Next up: a virtual erection?
Cheryl: Shall we get undressed?
Mark: Sure!
Actually, he is anything but sure.
Cheryl: So, the difference between me and a prostitute is that I don’t want your return business. I’m here to help you communicate about your sexual feelings, so you can share them with a future partner.
Of course, he falls in love with her.
Cheryl [taking Mark’s hand from one breast to the other]: When you touch one you have to touch the other. It’s sort of a rule.
Tell that to his lips.
Mark: She complemented me on my shirt, my hair. She held my penis. I haven’t even seen my penis for over 30 years. Am I sharing too much, Father?
Father Brendan: No, no, I’m used to it.
If you get his drift.
Cheryl: Next week, Friday the twentieth, same time?
Mark: That’s good for me.
Cheryl: Next time we’ll start to work on intercourse.
The look on Mark's face.
Cheryl [dictating into a tape recorder]: First session. Mark is the oldest of four children and raised Catholic. He was extremely nervous. He yelled a lot when I took off his shirt, but I think more out of fear than pain. He cannot masturbate. Has only had the occasional kissing experience. He is capable of achieving an erection easily, but the unusual curvature of his body could be a serious obstacle to intercourse.
But she accepts the challenge.
Mark [to Father Brendan]: I did it again. This time I ejaculated on her thigh.
He is getting closer though.
Mark: It won’t fit! It’s not going to fit!
Cheryl: No, Mark, it will fit just fine.
Mark: No, it’s dangerous. It’s too big!
Cheryl: It’s not too big. Relax.
Mark: It won’t fit. It’ll hurt. It’s too risky.
Cheryl: Please, stop this. I promise you, nothing bad will happen. Now, let’s try again while you’re still hard.
And again and again and again as I recall.
Cheryl [after – yet again – Mark’s very premature ejaculation]: We still have some time. We can talk, which you seem to like, or you can suck on my nipples, which you also seem to like.
Who wouldn't?
Cheryl [dictating into tape recorder]: I believe the root of his anxiety is his parents and his religion. He believes he doesn’t deserve sex…We discussed his fantasies, which were mostly masochistic. Again, the idea of being punished. He’s never seen female genitalia before and seems quite frightened at the thought of it.
You have to see it to believe it.
[Mark is gasping for air with Cheryl sitting on his face]
Cheryl: Are you okay down there?Mark: I’m choking!
Cheryl [getting off of Mark]: Oh my God!
[she puts Mark’s mouthpiece between his lips]
Cheryl: Well, I guess that’s off the menu until further notice.
Darn.
Cheryl: I grew up in Salem, brought up Catholic, like you, but the church didn’t appreciate my attitude towards sex.
Mark: You had an attitude towards sex?
Cheryl: Yes, I liked it. They like to think they threw me out, but I threw them out. So for years I didn’t believe in anything, and now I’m converting to Judaism.
Mark: Well, it’s good to have some kind of insurance.
The human condition!
Cheryl [to Mark]: You did great today. You’re a fully-fledged male homosapien endowed with a handsome and substantial penis, which now has a proven track record.
Can you say that?
Mark: Was I really inside you?
Cheryl: You were really and truly inside me.
Mark: For how long?
Cheryl: Five or six seconds.
Mark: Is that all?
Cheryl: That’s a long time for some people.
She means for men of course.
Cheryl [dictating into a tape recorder]: Mark appears to be indulging in typical transference behaviour. This is not unusual after first successful intercourse, but I think he is especially susceptible. He cannot help seeing me as the multi- functional, all-purpose woman, mother, sister, schoolmistress, whore, lover and best friend. At the same time, his anxiety about sexual performance has diminished.
Yep, that's how transference works alright.
Motel Clerk: Now, come on, what kind of therapist is she?
Vera: I told you the first time, she’s a sex therapist. Today they’re working on “simultaneous orgasm”.
Motel Clerk: What’s that?
Anyone here not know?
Mark: What happens when…?
Cheryl: What happens when what?
Mark: When people become attached to each other.
Cheryl: What people?
Mark: Just people. What’s the chemistry in it all? When people are attracted to each other.
Cheryl: Are you attracted to me?
Mark: [facetiously]: God, no.
[Cheryl laughs]
Mark: I’m just talking hypothetically.
Cheryl: Hypothetically… they write poems. They have sex.
Mark: And what happens next?
Cheryl: After poetry and sex? Nothing or everything. The rest is by negotiation, as it were.
Mark: What do you mean?
Cheryl: I mean, you can leave it at love and attraction… or you can make things complicated, like most people do.
Mark: Have you?
Cheryl: Yes.
Transference and then some.
[the power goes out and Mark is alone]
Mark [leaving a phone message]: Rod. I need your help. The power’s gone out…including the pump on the iron lung. I’d say I got about three hours before I start to turn blue.
[he tries dialing 911 but drops the mouthpiece]
Mark: So this is how it ends.
You wonder if this part is true. Alone in his condition? No contingency plan for a power outage?
Susan [rather incredulously]: Are you religious?
Mark: Yes, I would find it absolutely intolerable not to be to able blame someone for all this. Are you?
Susan: No, I don’t go to any church, or…I don’t think about God very much. I do believe there’s a mysterious logic or poetry to life. I guess that makes me a spiritual type.
Mark: Yes. That would count.
Hell, almost anything counts these days.
Susan: Would you like me to visit you?
Mark: Are you married?
Susan: No.
Mark: Do you have a steady boyfriend?
Susan: No.
Mark: Then please visit as often as you can.
Mark moves on.
Mark: There’s just one more thing I want to tell you. I’m not a virgin.
Susan: So, are you in a relationship at the moment?
Mark: No, it was a passing thing.
Susan: Thanks for sharing that with me.
Right, a passing thing.
Mark [voiceover]: I met Susan five years before I died. She was the love of my life. We had the same priorities, baseball pretty much came first, and we wrote each other mushy poems. I never expected it, nor did she, but that’s often the way things turn out. They say there is a cup of life which is either half empty or half full depending on how you freel about things. Of course the two halves were never even. Not in my case, that’s for sure. I mean, look at all the years of unendurable crap I’ve had to put up with. That fills most of the cup. But in the little bit that’s left what do I have to show for myself? At the very least three beautiful women who all loved me…and who will all show up at my funeral.
Just imagine it.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Once a corrupt cop, he is now a pimp. But then, one by one, his “girls” seem to be “disappearing”. Worse, they have not first “cleared their debts”. To him in other words. And they are apparently meeting up with the same customer. So, being “street smart”, he aims to track him [them?] down.
Thus he comes to reflect the best parts [meaning the very worst parts] of both sides of the law.
And let’s face facts: Some folks have more options available to them than others. And some psycho-sexual predators are more monstrous than others. And some cops are more incompetent than others. Or more brutal. It’s the same all over. The globe, for example.
The banality of evil is truly embodied here. A more dim-witted monster it would be hard to find. It’s less that you can’t reason with him and more that he can’t reason with you. It’s just futile trying to dig out “the reason” at all. It’s too deeply buried “in there” somewhere.
A thriller that is actually, well, thrilling. Assuming of course you can stomach this sort of thing. But isn’t it just one more rendition of “the belly of the beast”. Having grown up in one myself.
Then there’s the shit thrower. At the mayor of Seoul no less.
The Chaser [Chugyeogja]
Joong-ho: You crazy bitch, who says I’m ripping people off? I’m the one being ripped off. Bitches get a big advance from me and then disappear. Ask any asshole on the street what it means. Whether they’ve been sold or ran away.
Seong-hee: You rotten bastard.
Not many who aren't here.
Meathead: 4885?
Joong-ho: Know this number?
Meathead: Yes. He’s a complete wacko. Min-jin went to serve that bastard?
Joong-ho [checking his appointments book]: Oh shit…
Let's run this by Michael Stivic.
Joong-ho [to Young-min]: Hey, 4885. It’s you, isn’t it? Go ahead, answer it, asshole.
Would you?
Cop: Did you sell the girls?
Young-min: No, I didn’t sell them. I killed them.
On the other hand, which is worse?
Young-min [to detective]: I saw how pigs were killed. That’s where I got the idea.
That's how it works....existentially.
Joong-ho: Was there anything strange about him?
Seong-hee: A lot. He is a complete lunatic.
Joong-ho: Tell me.
Seong-hee: His dick wouldn’t get hard.
Joong-ho: Watch what you say around the kid!
Seong-hee: I mean his penis wouldn’t get erect. No matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t work.
What does this remind you of?
Seong-hee [to Joong-hee]: He killed someone, didn’t he?
Oh, yeah.
Young-min: I asked before, why do you want to know?
Police chief: I thought you might be impotent.
Young-min: How would you know?
Police chief: Because assholes like you mostly are.
[Young-min just stares at him]
Police chief: You’re impotent, aren’t you? When you see a woman you want to have sex but you can’t. So you kill them with a chisel, right? You think the chisel is your penis. The pleasure you get from hammering the chisel into her head.
Young-min: That’s not the reason. Do you want me to tell you? Do you want me to tell you the reason?
Police chief: I’m right, aren’t I? You want to have sex but your body can’t.
[Young-min leaps across the table and tries to strangle him]
Young-min: What do you know?!!
This really is just pure conjecture. We’ll never know what motivated him.
Young-min: Ma’am, do you have a club or a hammer?
Shopkeeper: Well, I don’t have a club. Here’s a hammer.
[she hands him the hammer]
Shopkeeper: I feel much safer now since you are here.
[her last words of course]
I wonder what mine will be.
[Joong-ho listens to a phone message from Mi-jin just before she was attacked]
Mi-jin: Joong-ho. Joong-ho, it’s me. You’re not answering your phone. Don’t get mad and listen to me. I want to quit. I really can’t take it anymore. I’m too scared to do this job. I can’t do this.
[the sound of Mi-jin crying]
On the other hand, she actually survives.
Thus he comes to reflect the best parts [meaning the very worst parts] of both sides of the law.
And let’s face facts: Some folks have more options available to them than others. And some psycho-sexual predators are more monstrous than others. And some cops are more incompetent than others. Or more brutal. It’s the same all over. The globe, for example.
The banality of evil is truly embodied here. A more dim-witted monster it would be hard to find. It’s less that you can’t reason with him and more that he can’t reason with you. It’s just futile trying to dig out “the reason” at all. It’s too deeply buried “in there” somewhere.
A thriller that is actually, well, thrilling. Assuming of course you can stomach this sort of thing. But isn’t it just one more rendition of “the belly of the beast”. Having grown up in one myself.
Then there’s the shit thrower. At the mayor of Seoul no less.
The Chaser [Chugyeogja]
Joong-ho: You crazy bitch, who says I’m ripping people off? I’m the one being ripped off. Bitches get a big advance from me and then disappear. Ask any asshole on the street what it means. Whether they’ve been sold or ran away.
Seong-hee: You rotten bastard.
Not many who aren't here.
Meathead: 4885?
Joong-ho: Know this number?
Meathead: Yes. He’s a complete wacko. Min-jin went to serve that bastard?
Joong-ho [checking his appointments book]: Oh shit…
Let's run this by Michael Stivic.
Joong-ho [to Young-min]: Hey, 4885. It’s you, isn’t it? Go ahead, answer it, asshole.
Would you?
Cop: Did you sell the girls?
Young-min: No, I didn’t sell them. I killed them.
On the other hand, which is worse?
Young-min [to detective]: I saw how pigs were killed. That’s where I got the idea.
That's how it works....existentially.
Joong-ho: Was there anything strange about him?
Seong-hee: A lot. He is a complete lunatic.
Joong-ho: Tell me.
Seong-hee: His dick wouldn’t get hard.
Joong-ho: Watch what you say around the kid!
Seong-hee: I mean his penis wouldn’t get erect. No matter how hard I tried, it wouldn’t work.
What does this remind you of?
Seong-hee [to Joong-hee]: He killed someone, didn’t he?
Oh, yeah.
Young-min: I asked before, why do you want to know?
Police chief: I thought you might be impotent.
Young-min: How would you know?
Police chief: Because assholes like you mostly are.
[Young-min just stares at him]
Police chief: You’re impotent, aren’t you? When you see a woman you want to have sex but you can’t. So you kill them with a chisel, right? You think the chisel is your penis. The pleasure you get from hammering the chisel into her head.
Young-min: That’s not the reason. Do you want me to tell you? Do you want me to tell you the reason?
Police chief: I’m right, aren’t I? You want to have sex but your body can’t.
[Young-min leaps across the table and tries to strangle him]
Young-min: What do you know?!!
This really is just pure conjecture. We’ll never know what motivated him.
Young-min: Ma’am, do you have a club or a hammer?
Shopkeeper: Well, I don’t have a club. Here’s a hammer.
[she hands him the hammer]
Shopkeeper: I feel much safer now since you are here.
[her last words of course]
I wonder what mine will be.
[Joong-ho listens to a phone message from Mi-jin just before she was attacked]
Mi-jin: Joong-ho. Joong-ho, it’s me. You’re not answering your phone. Don’t get mad and listen to me. I want to quit. I really can’t take it anymore. I’m too scared to do this job. I can’t do this.
[the sound of Mi-jin crying]
On the other hand, she actually survives.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Suicide
“Killing oneself is, anyway, a misnomer. We don't kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, 'He fought so hard.' And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong.” Sally Brampton
Tell me about it. Twice so far.
“It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.” Emil Cioran
Too late for what?
"Cowardice is nothing to do with it - suicide takes considerable courage...No, what's selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching.” David Mitchel
Exactly!
“The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom really is the amount of press coverage.” Chuck Palahniuk
My guess: not always.
“Let them think what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank -- but that's not the same thing.” Joseph Conrad
New thread?
“Suicide is man's way of telling God, 'You can't fire me - I quit!'” Bill Maher
Tell that to the Grim Reaper.
“Killing oneself is, anyway, a misnomer. We don't kill ourselves. We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval, 'He fought so hard.' And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong.” Sally Brampton
Tell me about it. Twice so far.
“It is not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.” Emil Cioran
Too late for what?
"Cowardice is nothing to do with it - suicide takes considerable courage...No, what's selfish is to demand another to endure an intolerable existence, just to spare families, friends, and enemies a bit of soul-searching.” David Mitchel
Exactly!
“The only difference between a suicide and a martyrdom really is the amount of press coverage.” Chuck Palahniuk
My guess: not always.
“Let them think what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank -- but that's not the same thing.” Joseph Conrad
New thread?
“Suicide is man's way of telling God, 'You can't fire me - I quit!'” Bill Maher
Tell that to the Grim Reaper.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
69.
No, not that 69. Instead, the 69 here revolves around a plot device that manages to pop up from time to time in the movies: A screw in a 6 on the outside of a door will come loose and the number will tumble over and appear instead to be a 9. The rest you can probably guess: the bad guys go to the wrong room and as a consequence somebody’s life gets turned upside down in turn. If hilariously at times.
It is then a matter of whether it is for the better or for the worse. Here, for Tum. And since this is basically a comedy how bad can it be? In fact, at the very beginning of the film, Tum has just lost her job. So she needs all the fortuity she can get.
Sure enough the next morning she gets up and hears a sound outside her door. She opens it and there sitting in the hallway is a cardboard box. She brings the box inside and puts it on her bed. She gets a knife from the kitchen drawer and slices through the tape on top. She opens it. It’s filled to the brim with money. And since we have already witnessed her shoplifting the day before we are reasonably sure she plans on keeping it. Of course there will be the thugs who want it back.
A comedy of errors ensues. Think Blood Simple with a laugh track. In other words, as the dead bodies and the coincidences pile up, I doubt that this is based on a true story.
The original Thai title means “Funny Story Six Nine”. When the movie was released, Thais mistook the title as “Funny Story Sixty-Nine” because the two numbers are written together. However, the director confirmed that it"s “Six Nine”. IMDb
6ixty Nin9 [Ruang Talok 69]
Employee: Won’t you pick a number too?
Boss: No, I don’t. I’m the boss.
He leaves it up to “fate” to decide who goes. Tum gets 9. She’s gone. But she lives in room 6. So we’ll see what fate really has in store for her. Not to mention the boss.
Tum [on the phone with her friend]: What would you do if you found a box with $25,000 in front your room?
Jim: I’d just leave it alone.
Tum: Wouldn’t you want it? Over $25,000 inside!
Jim: Has someone left a box with $25,000 in front of your room?
Tum: No, I mean, suppose it was so?
Jim: A box with $25,000? That’s a bit strange don’t you think?
It'll get a lot stranger.
Thug: I wouldn’t be the least surprised if Berm’s body suddenly appears from nowhere.
Or there about.
Tum: How can I be sure that…
Kanjit: That you won’t be cheated? You can never be certain. If you want absolute certainty, you go to the Ministry of foreign affairs for your passport. Then you get your real visa at the embassy. That way it’s legal. And it cost much less than mine. But you won’t be traveling tonight, that’s for sure.
And for sure it turns out to be,
Kanjit [to Tum]: Thai passport holders are targeted in many countries. Particularly a pretty young lady such as you. In those countries they still believe there are only two occupations in Thailand. Women are prostitutes and men are drug dealers.
Yo, Supannika, you're up![/b]
Thug [on phone to Mafia Tong in Tum’s apartment]]: I think this Kanjit is up to some dirty tricks. He got the police involved in this! The cop shot Sumpun dead!
The comedy of errors rolls on.
Jim [on phone with Tum]: You want to borrow my truck? For what? Donating books? Oh, lots of books.
,,,and on and on and on.
Neighbor [to Tum]: Wow! You read a lot!
Of course, it's a body -- or two? -- in the trunk not books.
Kanjit [to Mafia Tong]: What are you smiling at? You’re two cigarette puffs away from death.
I counted three myself. But point taken.
Pervert [after Tum answers the phone in her apartment with dead bodies everywhere]: You Slut! You fucking whore! I want to make love to you. I really do…
Lalita!
No, not that 69. Instead, the 69 here revolves around a plot device that manages to pop up from time to time in the movies: A screw in a 6 on the outside of a door will come loose and the number will tumble over and appear instead to be a 9. The rest you can probably guess: the bad guys go to the wrong room and as a consequence somebody’s life gets turned upside down in turn. If hilariously at times.
It is then a matter of whether it is for the better or for the worse. Here, for Tum. And since this is basically a comedy how bad can it be? In fact, at the very beginning of the film, Tum has just lost her job. So she needs all the fortuity she can get.
Sure enough the next morning she gets up and hears a sound outside her door. She opens it and there sitting in the hallway is a cardboard box. She brings the box inside and puts it on her bed. She gets a knife from the kitchen drawer and slices through the tape on top. She opens it. It’s filled to the brim with money. And since we have already witnessed her shoplifting the day before we are reasonably sure she plans on keeping it. Of course there will be the thugs who want it back.
A comedy of errors ensues. Think Blood Simple with a laugh track. In other words, as the dead bodies and the coincidences pile up, I doubt that this is based on a true story.
The original Thai title means “Funny Story Six Nine”. When the movie was released, Thais mistook the title as “Funny Story Sixty-Nine” because the two numbers are written together. However, the director confirmed that it"s “Six Nine”. IMDb
6ixty Nin9 [Ruang Talok 69]
Employee: Won’t you pick a number too?
Boss: No, I don’t. I’m the boss.
He leaves it up to “fate” to decide who goes. Tum gets 9. She’s gone. But she lives in room 6. So we’ll see what fate really has in store for her. Not to mention the boss.
Tum [on the phone with her friend]: What would you do if you found a box with $25,000 in front your room?
Jim: I’d just leave it alone.
Tum: Wouldn’t you want it? Over $25,000 inside!
Jim: Has someone left a box with $25,000 in front of your room?
Tum: No, I mean, suppose it was so?
Jim: A box with $25,000? That’s a bit strange don’t you think?
It'll get a lot stranger.
Thug: I wouldn’t be the least surprised if Berm’s body suddenly appears from nowhere.
Or there about.
Tum: How can I be sure that…
Kanjit: That you won’t be cheated? You can never be certain. If you want absolute certainty, you go to the Ministry of foreign affairs for your passport. Then you get your real visa at the embassy. That way it’s legal. And it cost much less than mine. But you won’t be traveling tonight, that’s for sure.
And for sure it turns out to be,
Kanjit [to Tum]: Thai passport holders are targeted in many countries. Particularly a pretty young lady such as you. In those countries they still believe there are only two occupations in Thailand. Women are prostitutes and men are drug dealers.
Yo, Supannika, you're up![/b]
Thug [on phone to Mafia Tong in Tum’s apartment]]: I think this Kanjit is up to some dirty tricks. He got the police involved in this! The cop shot Sumpun dead!
The comedy of errors rolls on.
Jim [on phone with Tum]: You want to borrow my truck? For what? Donating books? Oh, lots of books.
,,,and on and on and on.
Neighbor [to Tum]: Wow! You read a lot!
Of course, it's a body -- or two? -- in the trunk not books.
Kanjit [to Mafia Tong]: What are you smiling at? You’re two cigarette puffs away from death.
I counted three myself. But point taken.
Pervert [after Tum answers the phone in her apartment with dead bodies everywhere]: You Slut! You fucking whore! I want to make love to you. I really do…
Lalita!
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
What will the nasty corporations think up next? And maybe we should take this one all the way to the Supreme Court. See if it is compatible with the Constitution of the United States.
I bring that up because, lets face it, a lot of science fiction writers like to speculate about just how far capitalism will take things down the road. Is there anything beyond the pale when it comes to toting up the bottom line?
Cloning is just one more bank account here. On the other hand, if the workforce consist increasingly more of clones how many folks are still going to be around to actually purchase the products they manufacture? Manufacture the workers manufacturing the commodities. Then manufacture the consumers to buy them? Like nature manufacturing a colony of ants, termites, or bees?
As for an “identity”, it’s entirely fabricated. But that is in turn just a more sophisticated [controlled] reflection on how actual human communities fabricate an identity for their children historically or culturally. What is our childhood but that part of our lives where others “implant” our own memories?
The film begins with a super slick television commercial. No different from the shit we get today from Exxon or BP on the PBS News Hour or on CNBC:
"There was a time when “energy” was a dirty word. When turning on your lights was a hard choice. Cities in brownout… food shortages, cars burning fuel to run. But that was the past. Where are we now? How do we make the world so much better? Make deserts bloom! Right now, we are the largest producer of fusion energy in the world. The energy of the sun, trapped in rock, harvested by machine from the far side of the moon. Today, we deliver enough clean-burning helium-3… to supply the energy needs of nearly 70% of the planet. Who would have thought that all energy we ever needed is right above our heads? The power of the moon…the power of our future."
What’s the catch? Well, we can count on them not telling us.
Let alone the Sam Bells. Besides, all most of us give a shit about is having the power. As cheaply as possible. We don’t really give a shit how it is gotten or delivered to us. Sam Bell’s a clone? So? Who the fuck is Sam Bell?
Look for HAL. Only this time on our side. Sort of.
Also, look for Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. Something from the Bible, perhaps.
The director is the son of David Bowie.
What with all the clones [all the different Sams] and figuring out who is communicating what to whom, following all of this can be…taxing. Here is one perspcective on What Is Really Going On: https://discover.hubpages.com/entertain ... -Explained
Moon
Gerty: Sam, you said it was the TV that distracted you… but when I came in, the TV wasn’t on. Perhaps you were imagining things?
Sam: Yeah, you think too much, pal.
That's all he -- it? -- can do...more or less autonomously?
Gerty: I’m sorry, Sam. Sam…I’m under strict orders not to let you outside.
Sam: I don’t appreciate that—being treated like a child. I don’t appreciate it.
Here, Sam is a clone of the original Sam. They are programmed to live 3 years. Only they don't know that.
Sam: I found him outside! I found him outside! Near one of the stalled harvesters…Who is he? Who is he?!
Gerty: We need to get him to the infirmary.
Sam: Not until you tell me who that is. You tell me who that is!
Gerty: Sam Bell.
How would you react?
Sam 1: Gerty?
Gerty: Yes, Sam?
Sam 1: Is there someone in the room with us?
More to the point....
Sam 1: Gerty, Gerty, what the fu—what the hell’s going on? Who is the guy—Who is the guy in the rec room? Where did he come from? Why does he look like me?
Gerty an AI robot is starting to...malfunction?
Sam 1: Who is the guy in the rec room?
Gerty: Sam Bell.
Sam: Come on, come on, come on!
Gerty: You are Sam Bell. Sam, what is it? It might help to talk about it.
Sam 1: I don’t understand what is happening… I think I’m starting to lose my mind.
Gerty: We can run some tests. I haven’t let Sam contact Lunar. They do not know that you were recovered alive from the accident.
Sam: “Recovered alive”? What do you mean? Why didn't you report it to Central? What are you talking about?
Gerty: I’m here to keep you safe, Sam.
All of them as it were.
Sam 1: Gerty says you’re Sam Bell. I’m Sam Bell, too!
Sam 2: What?
Sam 1: Well, we’ve got that going for us.
Whatever that means?
Sam 1: Who’s looking after the harvesters?
Sam 2: Harvesters are fine. It’s the fact that I’m here talking to a clone that’s slightly troubling.
Sam 1: I’m not a clone. I’m not a clone! You’re the clone.
Any clones posting here?
Sam 1: They’re sending a rescue unit? Why? Why are they sending a rescue unit?
Sam 2: To fix the stalled harvester. They didn’t think I was up to it.
Sam 1: Well, then I’m going back. That’s it for me.
[Sam 2 scoffs]
Sam 1: What?
Sam 2: Is that what you really think?
Sam 1: Yeah. I’ve got a contract! I’m going home.
Sam 2: You’re a fucking clone. You don’t have shit.
Sam 1: Hey, I’m going home!
Sam 2: Home! You’re not going anywhere. You know, you’ve been up here too long, man. You have lost your marbles. What do you think, Tess is back home, waiting on the sofa in lingerie? What about the original Sam? Huh?
Sam 1: I am the original Sam! I am Sam-fucking-Bell!! Hey! Me! Me! Gerty, am I a clone?
Gerty: Are you hungry?
Then the part where we may well be closer than we think to this sort of thing.
Sam 2: What about the other clones?
Sam 1: What?
Sam 2: We might not be the first two to have been woken up. You said that that model had already been started when you got here. Well, who started it? There might be others up here right now. Think about it. How did I get up here so quickly after your crash?
Sam 1: I don’t know…
Sam 2: They didn’t ship me in from Central. There wasn’t time. I must have come from the base. I bet there’s some kind of secret room.
Oh, yeah.
Sam 1: Why would they do that? What’s the motive?
Sam 2: Look, it’s a company, right? They have investors, they have shareholders. Shit like that. What’s cheaper? Spending time and money training new personnel…Or you just have a couple of spares here to do the job? It’s the far side of the moon! Those cheap fucks haven’t even fixed the communication satellite yet!
Sam 1: Tess would know, she would have told me…
Sam 2: Hey, Gepetto, wake up! You really think they give a shit about us? They’re laughing all the way to the bank!
They still are.
Sam 1: Gerty…Gerty? Am I really a clone?
Gerty: When you first arrived at Sarang, there was a small crash. You woke up in the infirmary. You suffered minor brain damage and memory loss. I kept you under observation and ran some tests.
Sam 1: I remember, yeah, I remember that…
Gerty: Sam, there was no crash. You were being awakened. It is standard procedure for all new clones to be given tests…to establish mental stability…and general physical health. Genetic abnormalities and minor duplication errors in the DNA can have considerable impact on…
Sam 1: What about Tess? What about Eve?
Gerty: They are memory implants, Sam. Uploaded, edited memories of the original Sam Bell. Sam, it’s been several hours since your last meal. Can I prepare you something?
On the other hand, how many Gerty's might there be?
LI Technician [on screen with prerecorded message]: Lay down, relax and breathe deeply. The cryogenic protection pod is designed to put you into a deep sleep for the duration of your three-day return journey back to Earth. As you begin to feel sleepy, think about the magnificent job that you’ve done. And how proud your family are of what you’ve accomplished. Lunar Industries remains the #1 provider of clean energy worldwide due to the hard work of people like you.
Well, that's something right?
Sam 1 [to Sam2]: I found your secret room.
Of course, it's secret for a reason.
Sam 1: Gerty, why did you help me before? With the password? Doesn’t that go against your programming or something?
Gerty: Helping you is what I do.
It's getting more complicated all the time.
[Sam is making a video phone call from the Moon to his home on Earth, while covering the camera with his hand]
Eve: Hello?
Sam 1: Is this the Bell residence?
Eve: This is the Bell residence. Could you call back? There’s something wrong with the picture.
Sam 1: I’m trying to reach Tess Bell.
Eve: I’m sorry, she passed away some years ago.
[long pause]
Sam 1: Are you sure?
Eve: Yeah, I think so. I’m her daughter. Can I help you?
Sam 1: …Eve?
Eve: Yeah.
Sam 1: Hi! Hi, Eve. How old… How old are you now?
Eve: I’m 15. Do I know you?
Sam 1: Sweetheart… How did mommy die, sweetheart? How did mommy die?
Eve [turns around and calls to someone off-screen]: Dad!
Dad [the original Sam Bell]: Yeah?
Eve: There’s someone asking about mom.
Dad: Who’s asking about mom?
[Sam immediately breaks off the call]
As it all begins to unravel?
Sam 2: You’ll be okay?
Gerty: Of course. The new Sam and I will be back to our programming as soon as I finished rebooting.
Sam 2: Gerty, we’re not programmed. We’re people, do you understand?
Genetically, that's what they are. On the other hand...
News announcer: Clone six, the clone of Sam Bell has been giving evidence that CEA’s board of directors meeting in Seattle…
Meanwhile, back on Earth...
Talk Show Host: You know what, he’s one of two things. He’s either a wacko or an illegal immigrant. Either way, they need to lock him up. Line two!
I suspect Lunar will simply reboot as well.
I bring that up because, lets face it, a lot of science fiction writers like to speculate about just how far capitalism will take things down the road. Is there anything beyond the pale when it comes to toting up the bottom line?
Cloning is just one more bank account here. On the other hand, if the workforce consist increasingly more of clones how many folks are still going to be around to actually purchase the products they manufacture? Manufacture the workers manufacturing the commodities. Then manufacture the consumers to buy them? Like nature manufacturing a colony of ants, termites, or bees?
As for an “identity”, it’s entirely fabricated. But that is in turn just a more sophisticated [controlled] reflection on how actual human communities fabricate an identity for their children historically or culturally. What is our childhood but that part of our lives where others “implant” our own memories?
The film begins with a super slick television commercial. No different from the shit we get today from Exxon or BP on the PBS News Hour or on CNBC:
"There was a time when “energy” was a dirty word. When turning on your lights was a hard choice. Cities in brownout… food shortages, cars burning fuel to run. But that was the past. Where are we now? How do we make the world so much better? Make deserts bloom! Right now, we are the largest producer of fusion energy in the world. The energy of the sun, trapped in rock, harvested by machine from the far side of the moon. Today, we deliver enough clean-burning helium-3… to supply the energy needs of nearly 70% of the planet. Who would have thought that all energy we ever needed is right above our heads? The power of the moon…the power of our future."
What’s the catch? Well, we can count on them not telling us.
Let alone the Sam Bells. Besides, all most of us give a shit about is having the power. As cheaply as possible. We don’t really give a shit how it is gotten or delivered to us. Sam Bell’s a clone? So? Who the fuck is Sam Bell?
Look for HAL. Only this time on our side. Sort of.
Also, look for Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. Something from the Bible, perhaps.
The director is the son of David Bowie.
What with all the clones [all the different Sams] and figuring out who is communicating what to whom, following all of this can be…taxing. Here is one perspcective on What Is Really Going On: https://discover.hubpages.com/entertain ... -Explained
Moon
Gerty: Sam, you said it was the TV that distracted you… but when I came in, the TV wasn’t on. Perhaps you were imagining things?
Sam: Yeah, you think too much, pal.
That's all he -- it? -- can do...more or less autonomously?
Gerty: I’m sorry, Sam. Sam…I’m under strict orders not to let you outside.
Sam: I don’t appreciate that—being treated like a child. I don’t appreciate it.
Here, Sam is a clone of the original Sam. They are programmed to live 3 years. Only they don't know that.
Sam: I found him outside! I found him outside! Near one of the stalled harvesters…Who is he? Who is he?!
Gerty: We need to get him to the infirmary.
Sam: Not until you tell me who that is. You tell me who that is!
Gerty: Sam Bell.
How would you react?
Sam 1: Gerty?
Gerty: Yes, Sam?
Sam 1: Is there someone in the room with us?
More to the point....
Sam 1: Gerty, Gerty, what the fu—what the hell’s going on? Who is the guy—Who is the guy in the rec room? Where did he come from? Why does he look like me?
Gerty an AI robot is starting to...malfunction?
Sam 1: Who is the guy in the rec room?
Gerty: Sam Bell.
Sam: Come on, come on, come on!
Gerty: You are Sam Bell. Sam, what is it? It might help to talk about it.
Sam 1: I don’t understand what is happening… I think I’m starting to lose my mind.
Gerty: We can run some tests. I haven’t let Sam contact Lunar. They do not know that you were recovered alive from the accident.
Sam: “Recovered alive”? What do you mean? Why didn't you report it to Central? What are you talking about?
Gerty: I’m here to keep you safe, Sam.
All of them as it were.
Sam 1: Gerty says you’re Sam Bell. I’m Sam Bell, too!
Sam 2: What?
Sam 1: Well, we’ve got that going for us.
Whatever that means?
Sam 1: Who’s looking after the harvesters?
Sam 2: Harvesters are fine. It’s the fact that I’m here talking to a clone that’s slightly troubling.
Sam 1: I’m not a clone. I’m not a clone! You’re the clone.
Any clones posting here?
Sam 1: They’re sending a rescue unit? Why? Why are they sending a rescue unit?
Sam 2: To fix the stalled harvester. They didn’t think I was up to it.
Sam 1: Well, then I’m going back. That’s it for me.
[Sam 2 scoffs]
Sam 1: What?
Sam 2: Is that what you really think?
Sam 1: Yeah. I’ve got a contract! I’m going home.
Sam 2: You’re a fucking clone. You don’t have shit.
Sam 1: Hey, I’m going home!
Sam 2: Home! You’re not going anywhere. You know, you’ve been up here too long, man. You have lost your marbles. What do you think, Tess is back home, waiting on the sofa in lingerie? What about the original Sam? Huh?
Sam 1: I am the original Sam! I am Sam-fucking-Bell!! Hey! Me! Me! Gerty, am I a clone?
Gerty: Are you hungry?
Then the part where we may well be closer than we think to this sort of thing.
Sam 2: What about the other clones?
Sam 1: What?
Sam 2: We might not be the first two to have been woken up. You said that that model had already been started when you got here. Well, who started it? There might be others up here right now. Think about it. How did I get up here so quickly after your crash?
Sam 1: I don’t know…
Sam 2: They didn’t ship me in from Central. There wasn’t time. I must have come from the base. I bet there’s some kind of secret room.
Oh, yeah.
Sam 1: Why would they do that? What’s the motive?
Sam 2: Look, it’s a company, right? They have investors, they have shareholders. Shit like that. What’s cheaper? Spending time and money training new personnel…Or you just have a couple of spares here to do the job? It’s the far side of the moon! Those cheap fucks haven’t even fixed the communication satellite yet!
Sam 1: Tess would know, she would have told me…
Sam 2: Hey, Gepetto, wake up! You really think they give a shit about us? They’re laughing all the way to the bank!
They still are.
Sam 1: Gerty…Gerty? Am I really a clone?
Gerty: When you first arrived at Sarang, there was a small crash. You woke up in the infirmary. You suffered minor brain damage and memory loss. I kept you under observation and ran some tests.
Sam 1: I remember, yeah, I remember that…
Gerty: Sam, there was no crash. You were being awakened. It is standard procedure for all new clones to be given tests…to establish mental stability…and general physical health. Genetic abnormalities and minor duplication errors in the DNA can have considerable impact on…
Sam 1: What about Tess? What about Eve?
Gerty: They are memory implants, Sam. Uploaded, edited memories of the original Sam Bell. Sam, it’s been several hours since your last meal. Can I prepare you something?
On the other hand, how many Gerty's might there be?
LI Technician [on screen with prerecorded message]: Lay down, relax and breathe deeply. The cryogenic protection pod is designed to put you into a deep sleep for the duration of your three-day return journey back to Earth. As you begin to feel sleepy, think about the magnificent job that you’ve done. And how proud your family are of what you’ve accomplished. Lunar Industries remains the #1 provider of clean energy worldwide due to the hard work of people like you.
Well, that's something right?
Sam 1 [to Sam2]: I found your secret room.
Of course, it's secret for a reason.
Sam 1: Gerty, why did you help me before? With the password? Doesn’t that go against your programming or something?
Gerty: Helping you is what I do.
It's getting more complicated all the time.
[Sam is making a video phone call from the Moon to his home on Earth, while covering the camera with his hand]
Eve: Hello?
Sam 1: Is this the Bell residence?
Eve: This is the Bell residence. Could you call back? There’s something wrong with the picture.
Sam 1: I’m trying to reach Tess Bell.
Eve: I’m sorry, she passed away some years ago.
[long pause]
Sam 1: Are you sure?
Eve: Yeah, I think so. I’m her daughter. Can I help you?
Sam 1: …Eve?
Eve: Yeah.
Sam 1: Hi! Hi, Eve. How old… How old are you now?
Eve: I’m 15. Do I know you?
Sam 1: Sweetheart… How did mommy die, sweetheart? How did mommy die?
Eve [turns around and calls to someone off-screen]: Dad!
Dad [the original Sam Bell]: Yeah?
Eve: There’s someone asking about mom.
Dad: Who’s asking about mom?
[Sam immediately breaks off the call]
As it all begins to unravel?
Sam 2: You’ll be okay?
Gerty: Of course. The new Sam and I will be back to our programming as soon as I finished rebooting.
Sam 2: Gerty, we’re not programmed. We’re people, do you understand?
Genetically, that's what they are. On the other hand...
News announcer: Clone six, the clone of Sam Bell has been giving evidence that CEA’s board of directors meeting in Seattle…
Meanwhile, back on Earth...
Talk Show Host: You know what, he’s one of two things. He’s either a wacko or an illegal immigrant. Either way, they need to lock him up. Line two!
I suspect Lunar will simply reboot as well.
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iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Umberto Eco from Foucault’s Pendulum
I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.
Next up: bigger scraps of stupidity.
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
Of course: define harmless.
Each of us is sometimes a cretin, a fool, a moron, or a lunatic. A normal person is just a reasonable mix of these components, these four ideal types.
Of course: define ideal.
As the man said, for every complex problem there’s a simple solution, and it’s wrong.
What, even up in the clouds?
Any fact becomes important when it's connected to another.
My guess: more or less.
We were clever enough to turn a laundry list into poetry.
Or, perhaps, ignorant enough to believe it?
I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.
Next up: bigger scraps of stupidity.
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
Of course: define harmless.
Each of us is sometimes a cretin, a fool, a moron, or a lunatic. A normal person is just a reasonable mix of these components, these four ideal types.
Of course: define ideal.
As the man said, for every complex problem there’s a simple solution, and it’s wrong.
What, even up in the clouds?
Any fact becomes important when it's connected to another.
My guess: more or less.
We were clever enough to turn a laundry list into poetry.
Or, perhaps, ignorant enough to believe it?